Inspiration comes in the strangest places

The other day, I was lurking about a Borders, trying to decide what I’m going to do about a Father’s Day gift. (Apparently, I’m going to do a slightly bigger guilt gift when he’s here next month because I ran out of time to locate what i wanted this month.) I found this wire jewelry book I had never seen before, and thought very seriously about picking it up. It had some gorgeous patterns that didn’t require reliance on a wire jig or tools do accomplish. Now, I’m thinking about how I can add more open designs into my own work.

This morning, as I was groggily trying to find an alternative to a bad Buffy rerun, I stumbled across one of two jewelry shopping networks we have. They were doing a line of Victorian pieces. The first was a collar. Now, traditionally, I’m really not one for collars. I don’t wear them personally, and I find it difficult to carry through designs that I wouldn’t wear myself. However, this one was absolutely beautiful, and after staring at it half-asleep for a couple of minutes I realized I could easily duplicate the style.

I scribbled down some notes in EverNote (which is turning out to be one of the most useful pieces of software I’ve had in a while), and will be looking at it for possible future designs.

Advice for using U-Pins

Last week, I created some pieces for a friend to use as prize support for an upcoming pageant. One of them used my new obsession- diagonally drilled cube beads! It came out so nicely! I may have to do some more work with those.

After finishing off the pieces, I was placing them in their boxes to prepare to hand them over to my friend. After so long, one would think I would remember the basic rules of using u-pins to secure a piece into a box. I didn’t that night.

The point of u-pins is to secure jewelry to keep it laying nicely in its box. When used correctly, they do their job quite nicely. To use the u-pins correctly, you hook them through the piece and then push them into the lining material. Now here’s the crucial part (and where I messed up the other night): you aim the points toward the center of the lining material and push the pins completely in. You then secure the other side by hooking the pins through the piece, pull the piece taut, and then slide it into the lining material following the above directions.

This creates enough tension to keep both the pins and the piece lying correctly.

My days of book learning might be over…for a bit

As things stand, I am almost entire self-taught in the ways of making jewelry. I find books and pamphlets and teach myself.

On a couple of occasions, I’ve had a human teach me the technique involved.

At Christmas, a friend gave me a gift certificate to beadclub. Today, I finally had the opportunity to pop over to Woodinville and check it out. It’s a nice store, with mostly seed beads of varying sizes, Czech glass and Swarovski crystal beads, and then findings and basic supplies. As I work mostly in semi-precious stones and minerals, I suspect I won’t be buying many beads from them right now.

Around the room were little cabinets, each one highlighting a different jewelry design skill. As can be expected, the wire one held my attention. There were a couple of pieces that look similar to pieces I’ve either made or have thought about making. There were also the two basic chains I make. Those didn’t interest me nearly as much as the chains I had either never attempted or seen before!

I asked for a class schedule. They didn’t have one, but I signed up for the mailing list. If the wire classes aren’t too cost-prohibitive, I may just sign up for a couple of them.

The woman was also quite interested to learn that I do wire jewelry. I guess they don’t get many of us in the shop…

A little story

(This is my first attempt using the img tag, so please be forgiving.)

This weekend, I’m in training for the summer camp I’ll be working at all summer. While it will be very time-consuming, I plan to keep things running here as smoothly as possible.

This has been a crazy week. I wrote a sidebar for Jeremy Wright’s upcoming book, and then was interviewed by FreeFrom9to5. I don’t know when either will be publicly available, but I wanted to thank both Jeremy and Eric for giving me those opportunities.

One of the things I discussed in both was my interest in building stories around my work, so I’d like to spend some time engaging in that.

The first piece I’d like to talk about is shown here. If it were a catalogued piece of the collection, it would be Linnea Collection- Aventurine Choker with Charm. It feels so cold and distant. Instead, it is a part of my personal collection as the first piece of jewelry I made.

This, in and of itself is a misnomer. I actually made jewelry as a child. I even sold friendship bracelets as a child. However, this piece represents my first step into the world of wire. The first piece I felt I could make and wear as an adult. I really don’t recall the day I made it because I made this piece and another one afternoon.

I had just purchased Great Wire Jewelry: Projects and Techniques and some supplies. My original purpose in buying the book was to learn viking knit, and I spent nearly a month debating over buying the it. Imagine my great surprise when I found that the back half of the book covered ring pieces. I had been wanting to learn chain mail for nearly two years at that point, and this book held all the secrets.

I sat down and set to work…on a byzantine chain, and the piece pictured here. Originally, I made this chain without the charm, but included a matching bracelet. The bracelet vanished some time later, but a trip to one of my favorite shops in the Texas hill country turned up the lovely Celtic charm that I ended up adding.

To this day, I still wear and love this choker, and the design is the basis for my original design line: the Linnea Collection.