Slippery Slope! Turquoise (and a Bonus Stone)

In my previous post I mentioned setting stones that are not a consistent height from bottom to top. The second or third stone I ever set was one of these. It's a piece of turquoise my father found on my parents' property in Arizona.

The way the stone was cut meant that one side of it is higher than the other. Which doesn't mean it's un-settable, but it requires a bit more work on both the front and the back end of setting.

The reason this is tricky is because you usually need only 1 mm (that's all!) of bezel wire above the rim of your stone. With a stone that has different heights, you must measure the wire to the highest part and leave 1mm for setting....which means you will have excess wire for the shorter parts. If you measured to the shorter part, you wouldn't have enough wire to cover the stone and keep it in place in the high spots.

You can see the uneven-ness of the stone best in this shot:

The left side is definitely higher than the right. And yeah, more curvy-ness on the back plate. Part of that same learning experience I had with the Biggs Jasper of my earlier post.

For fun, more photos:

This turned out to be one of my favorite pieces, even though it was a bit of a ball-buster to set. I struggled to get the stone set without it rattling / moving within the setting (a BIG fabrication no-no). It took a long, long time to get the bezel pressed up against the stone without any looseness. But now I have beautiful ring that showcases one of my Dad's found stones. Bonus: Dad loves it too!

Here's an example of an uneven stone before it's set. Check it out:

You can really see how the right side is lower than the left. So the bezel wire will have to be measured for the left side and then "finagled" during the stone setting process. 

And in the above shot, it's quite clear that the back of the stone - bottom of the photo - is very uneven as well! Fun, fun, FUN during setting...well, I always like a challenge.  :)

So what's this stone? Lapis? Nope. Kyanite? Nooo...it's a little beauty called Cavansite. A not-very-common stone first discovered in Oregon in the 1960's. Since then it has only been found in a few other locations, like a place called Deccan Traps, in India. So there's not too much of it and it's apparently valuable to specimen collectors (which sounds terrible but simply means the geo-freaks* who collect rock specimens). The stone's name is a combination of its materials: Calcium, Vanadium, and Silicate. Its color is always a deep blue and unlike any other stone I've seen.

Now I know you're dying to see the front of this bad boy, right? Well first let me disclaim by saying that my cabochon isn't probably the best Cavansite, nor is it very big...but it IS pretty and it was almost UNaffordable even in this tiny size (about the width of my thumbnail at its widest). But I couldn't resist it...I, too, am a geo-freak at heart!

That dark spot down the bottom of the stone is from the camera. Otherwise, all-natural sea-blue coloring. Yummy!

*geo-freaks:  I use the term very fondly as I have been a rock and gem girl since...well, since I was a girl. And I have been known to buy rock specimens to use as bookends, coasters, paperweights...I'll use almost any excuse to get them into my home.   :)

Biggs Jasper Cabochon

This is one of my first bezel-set stones. It's a piece of Biggs Jasper, from Oregon. Biggs is pretty rare (and pricey!) these days, as it is no longer being mined. A highway is being built over the mine location - it is *only* found in Oregon - and the mine is pretty inaccessible. I free-handed the back plate shape and then cut it out with a jeweler's saw. Once the stone was set, I satin-finished the front because the stone is so eye-catching but in such subtle colors. A shiny finish would have detracted from the stone. It looks a lot more "high-shine" in the picture (the actual metal finish is pretty subtle) because I wanted to get the stone details to come out, so the photo is a little over-lighted.

What I learned:

- less frou-frou on the edges of the back plate. It took me FOREVER to get all those little curvy parts shaped right and then sanded. I still like the curvy idea, but next time will dial down the amount of curves.

- sometimes soldering is just a mystery. I had trouble setting the stone (it's not as easy as you might think for a beginner!) and when I was setting it, the bezel (the part that holds the stone in) SPLIT and had to be re-soldered. See?

there's the back plate, and the bezel after I removed the stone (also NOT easy!) and stripped off the busted bezel. I made this piece in jewelry class and my instructor told me she'd never seen that happen before...I'll add it to my long list of firsts (like having a piece explode...a story for another day). So no explanation for why, but I had to make a new bezel, solder it to the back plate again, and then re-set the stone.

What you may not know about stone setting is that round and oval stones are considered the easiest to set. Odd shapes, anything with corners (which sucks for me, as I am especially drawn to triangles!), and stones that are not even (not a consistent height from the flat (bottom) back of the stone to the top dome) are harder. I think the second stone I set was a doublet turquoise...I'll save that for another day as well...I don't like to start out with anything *too* easy, y'know!

Next time I'll post about my next step in the stone-setting projects: an oddly-shaped stone, with embellishments on the sides of the pendant. A bit trickier but infinitely more satisfying...

To Have the Wolf by the Ear

Somehow "between a rock and a hard place" was not nearly as evocative as the synonym Wikipedia gave me, "to have the wolf by the ear". I definitely prefer the more colorful phrase.  :) 

Yeah, it's been since February that I posted. A long, long time. And a lot of changes in my life...some of which are still ongoing. So as August opens to more hot-hot-hot days in Georgia, I am feeling a bit caught in between, and probably will be for a while. I'll try to give you the nutshell version of why:

- I am no longer doing wholesale in any great way. I stopped doing wholesale shows after the utter disaster that was Baltimore last year. Too many years, too much money, too little profit. So I regrouped and left my ego on the wholesale floor. If this was playing with the big kids, I'd rather play in a smaller sandbox. Or another sandbox entirely.  :)

But even though I no longer have the wholesale show expenses, we're still in a recession, y'all, and revenues are not what they used to be. So the first order of business was to increase cash flow.  This meant that I took on more festivals this year. Where I usually begin the festival circuit in April, this year I began in February, traveling to Miami for my first show of the year. And I have added in more shows than I usually do...so I have been either away from home more or busier than ever trying to keep up with production so that I have enough inventory for these events. Doing so has made me feel like I couldn't take a deep breath for most of 2011.

- I am still climbing the fabrication mountain. I persevered with fabrication classes at the Spruill Center through May, but with traveling to festivals, I missed a fair number of classes. And I didn't have any spare time to work on the projects at home, so I was constantly behind and couldn't keep up. I learned a lot and I do feel more confident about my skills, but after the Spring session, I needed a break, for two reasons. First I needed some downtime to really work on designing, not just fabricating projects that the instructor gave us, and second:

 

- I had major surgery in mid-June. Some of you know that I have been in braces since December 2009. The braces are not meant to straighten my teeth but to align my jaw (as much as possible) prior to having this surgery. If you're squeamish, maybe you should stop reading now...I won't bore you with all the gory details, but I had both jaws surgically broken and re-aligned. The upper jaw was not straight (it sloped to one side) so it was made level and also moved horizontally because it was not aligned evenly with the rest of my face. The lower jaw was pushed back because I had a fairly strong underbite. I'm skipping the details (honestly, most of them even *I* didn't - and don't - want to know) but essentially that's what occurred last month.

So now I'm in a bit of a waiting period...the bones will not be fully healed until mid-August, and then I can start physical therapy because all the facial muscles have been realigned too.And they are NOT happy about it. They want to go back to their original positioning, and they are stiff, sore, and really giving me grief. So in about a week, PT begins in earnest. I am not excited about it because I still have plenty of pain daily and I am not looking forward to adding more...but right now I still can't open my jaw wide enough to eat a sandwich, I can't really chew well, and I need to get the range of motion back at some point. Otherwise I am going to look pretty funny (and have limited food  choices) at restaurants for the rest of my life...

The additional problem with the surgery (and not being back on my regular diet) is that my energy is exceptionally low. I am tired all the time and I sleep a lot. And I don't feel rested when I wake. Some of that is pain, some I assume is lack of exercise (no exercise until the bones are healed), and some of course is that I am on a diet that is not really about eating healthy. It's not about eating un-healthy either, but I usually eat a lot of protein and fiber and for months now I've been having soft foods and carbs. So I feel very lethargic overall.

And the odyssey isn't over yet, kids! Next week I go back to the orthodontist to get rubber bands put on my braces. Why? Because my bite is still not aligned. Despite the 18 months in braces, AND the surgery, my back teeth still don't meet at all. This is partially normal for most jaw surgery patients, and partially an issue because I have a bridge on my upper jaw that is now obstructing the back teeth, since the jaws have been re-aligned. Eventually it will have to be removed and replaced with one that now fits my new jaw...by the time this is all over I will have a $10,000 mouth. It had better be worth it! And I can't really say that it's worth it...not yet.

So that's the scoop on my 2011 so far! If anyone wants more details on why I had the jaw surgery in the first place, feel free to contact me directly or leave a comment and I'll answer back.  Otherwise, I am communing with my sketch book, working (at least on paper) on new designs, as part of this summer was intended for just that purpose. Unfortunately, the surgery recovery is much more involved than I first anticipated, but I'm doing what I can, when I can.  In the meantime, I leave you with something new (completed in my spring fab class):

A deeply patinated wrap ring with some fun elements on it!