An Evolution

I've posted before about my jewelry fabrication journey, especially as it relates to stone setting. While recently I haven't had as much time as I'd like to hone my skills, I did create a few more pieces and I can see a design evolution.

I posted here about one of my first pendants and the issues I had with creating it. Where at first I found that just cutting out the backplate and getting the bezel solidly soldered down to it was problematic, now both of those steps come much more easily to me. And I've started to add embellishments to my fabrication work:

This is a gorgeous piece of lapis I've had for some time. I like setting teardrop stones "upside down" as my husband says...I don't know why but I like the points downward. Here's another example:

The above photo was a quickie while my girlfriend was wearing her necklace...I had photos of it at home but unfortunately they were lost, so this is all I have.

Next up is a Peruvian opal:

I love the colors in the opal! I have a few more like this and can't wait to play with them. I only added a few extras around the bezel as the stone has a lot going on. And the turquoise briolette picks up the colors perfectly.  :)

One more - which I almost didn't put up for sale. I SO love how this pendant turned out! But I can't possibly keep them all:

Sorry for the crooked shot, but it's the best one for showing the stone face. A phenomenal ocean jasper! Ocean jasper is found only in Madagascar, and can only be accessed at low tide, so I wanted to play with that. I made an asymmetrical back plate and then added only dot embellishments, randomly, to echo the orbs in the stone itself. The back is textured to look like the ocean has tossed it around for eons.

Now that I'm more comfortable adding embellishments, I feel like I'm ready to start adding more! I don't know what that will do to my stone choices - I tend to buy "busy" stones, and I'm not sure a "busy" background will really work with those - but I'm eager to see how the ideas and stones come together.  :)

What's Been Goin' On

...to paraphrase Marvin Gaye...a lot's been goin' on. I wish I could be more on top of the blog, but it seems that life never gets back to a slow speed anymore. My father has been ill and I've been spending a lot of time traveling to Arizona to visit. It's the kind of illness you typically don't recover from - Stage IV prostate cancer. So I was in AZ (for both work and to visit my folks) for 20 days out of the 29 days we had in February. That doesn't allow much time for blog updates or anything else!

However, I'm home now and have a brief bit of time before I leave again (unbelievably, my March schedule is even crazier than February's was), and I'm so excited about some new work that I wanted to share it with you. Most of my work days (if I'm not at a festival) are spent cleaning up castings and for the *next* festival, but I am pushing myself to still work on creating new stone designs. So here's what's currently on the work table (forgive the down-n-dirty shots):

It's tough to see but this is a lapis lazuli cabochon and the setting I've created for it. The stone isn't set yet because I have to patina the metal and then set the stone (same is true for all the shots here) but I'm almost there. Hopefully this and the others in this post will be done by the end of this week!

Next up, a beautiful ocean jasper:

I promise to post a better photo when this is all done. The setting nearly broke me and you can't really see the beauty of the stone here, but I promise it will all come together.   :)

And finally, a Peruvian opal I picked up on this year's Tucson trip:

I found several of these opals and can't wait to set this and make metal homes for the rest of them. I think they're going to be very well received.  :)

More details hopefully this weekend! Stay tuned...