Four Seasons of Jewelry '06-'07

jusmall - knitted necklace

I can't believe I have started off the new FSOJ by being late on the first week!!!

This week I used a pattern from  a book called contemporary bead and wire.  The necklace is knitted from wire, and has got shells, freshwater pearls, and rhodonite knitted into it.  It feels fairly heavy on, probably because of the huge number of stones in it, but it sits beautifully.  The necklace is finished off with end caps and a toggle fastening which are bali silver.

Close up picture on my new blog

Julie

Golden Splendor

I loved the color of these gorgeous 12mm  dark champagne South Sea Shell pearls, so wanted to share, I added vermeil saucers, beads and a Venetian glass leaf. It reminds me of the rich gold browns of autumn as the summer fades into that still warm glow.

~Jackie

Week 1- Crochet Wire Necklace- Ninde'

As I mentioned in my practice post, I have decided that this year I will use the weekly need to create something, to encourage me to try many of the tutorials, and projects in books, magazines, etc. that I have been "going to do someday."  They are most likely going to be very unoriginal since they will probably all be the first time I tried that technique or skill.  However, I am hoping that by the end of the year I will have learned which are worth pursuing, which I don't like, and will have ideas of how I can incorporate it into my own work.

This first enty for the year is a necklace of crocheted 28ga. brass with glass beads.  Most of the glass is mass produced but some of them are handmade lampwork.  They are in shades of purple and lavendar.  The back of the necklace is on 18 gauge brass with a handmade clasp.

I have never crocheted wire before and was unsure of what to expect.  I think I would like to try this technique a bit more, perhaps with different kinds of jasper for a more earthy look.  (It might have fit the theme better too!)

For those who are wondering, this is from J. Marsha Michler's book Bead and Wire art jewelry.

Sorry for the photo, it is just a quick shot taken on a piece of fabric on my ironing board.

Mary

www.nindedesigns.com

Trying again

Got knocked out of the project last year after needing fairly rough wrist surgery. I still apparently have a ruptured tendon, but it only affects the righthand side of my right hand, so I can somewhat function anyway! Anyway, here's hoping that I can make it through the project this year, even if I have to submit something easy when I'm having trouble. This tree is sterling with peridot leaves, and was a present for my daughter's 18th birthday.  http://alorinna.blogspot.com

Week 01 -Remy

Wow,. here we are for another year of challenging ourselves,. thinking outside the box,. trying new techniques we've never tried before and taking in all the beautiful eye candy for inspiration. I hope I can make it through another year,. I would like to apologise for my absence in commenting,. I found last FSOJ, that I had to post and run,.. my time just was/is not stretching far enough, but I promise I will try and organise myself better through this FSOJ and comment more often. Many thanks to those who took the time to comment on my jewelry despite my lack of doing so myself.  I really appreciated every word and hope I can return in kind this year.

Here is my week 1 piece for 06/07,  only 51 pieces to go *gasp*.
Unfortunately I cannot take credit for the lampwork bead,. that beauty was made by artist Peter Minson, using a technique I had seen in an online tutorial, which I then described to him and asked if he could show me in real life.  I tried it after he showed me and my efforts where erm,... cwappy by comparison.
Last 2 here, are my sad attemps.

*laughs so hard, throws head back and falls off chair*

Remy :)
My FSOJ Journal 
www.studioheath.com
Jewelry Making Tutorials
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Topaz Fire

  Not much from the Cricket Whisper this week. In a bit of a slump.  I hope to do better next time.  This is a bracelet mase with 6mm swarovski top drill bicone and squaredells. makes up easily and has lots of bling.  Still need better photos but am working on that.  Valerie

info@valjewell.com

Wk 1 - Dreamsofnever / Lisa

Hi guys,

This is my first FSOJ... I've been lurking watching all your fab creations for the past year (at least!), and have been itching to join in!  Finally it seems the time is right :)

Following is my piece for week one.  I suppose it is really earthy - the chunks of stone, mainly.  Its not a really "earthy" colour!  I sketched together the idea for this piece after watching a  movie, my original idea was to do something with black stones & make it look very gothic.  Unfortunatly, it didn't turn out like that! 

I still like it; I know I need to be neater with my wire wrapping though.  I seem to keep making huge pieces that aren't particularly wearable, and nothing I would wear myself...

Comments are welcome - the reason I joined was (apart from the big kick up the butt it will give me) - I want people to tell me what I'm doing wrong :)

Thanks, Lisa.

Earth's not just dirt any more!

So I agonized over the synonyms for Earth-ground, humus, soil, dirt- settled on dirt and started collecting colors. Garnet for my FLA red clay/dirt clod beginnings, agate because it's water turned to stone and hence, dirt, and labradorite because, let's face it-if the right light and the cut isn't just so, it just looks like a grey/green lump of -you guessed it- dirt.The other criteria was that it had to have some "heft", or at least the appearance of it. Solved that by making the center 3D if you will. Of course then balance needed to be maintained and I added the beaded bead garnet flowers. The wirework is not as clean as I would like-don't have the hand strenth to pull it firmly-but it's serviceable. BTW- I decided in working with it that Labradorite is the stone of supreme hopefulness-you just pray that you can share what you've seen in it's depths. Please forgive my lateness-my healing broken wrist put holds on the checks my fertile imagination wrote, but it does get better every day. One of my goals is to be kind to my self with this project while working hard. More timeliness next week. Comments and criticisms are most welcome. shaktipaj aka Perri

Earth: Night and Day

A little late, but here is the first week's piece.  Part of my personal goals are to do things I don't ordinarily do, such as use stones that inspired me once to buy them but then I never did anything with, try new designs, approachs and techniques, and to make some more elaborate pieces I normally only get around to doing for commission.  This piece incorporates a couple of those goals:  using a stone I bought a long time ago and never got around to, and trying out a different approach. 

The stone is a piece of petrified wood, one of several I bought some years back and never used.  I like this batch of stones because of the unusal markings and shapes.  Petrified wood seemed appropriate to the earth theme, as well as the clear/smokey quartz and pearls. 

There were several design challenges on this one.  One, was that it's a pretty thick stone (like a domino thickness) with straight vertical sides, which means the bezel wrap is extra wide.   Using 24 gauge wire, that made it 14 wires wide.  I had to be careful with bunching when wrapping.  If I had a do-over, there were 4 twisted wires in the middle of the pattern on the side that I would have mixed some square in with since that was the worst culprit for wanting to bunch.

The next thing that was a bit fiddly was that, inspired by the vertical division of light/dark in the stone color, I thought it would be cool to wrap it with silver on the light half and gold on the dark half, then follow that theme with light/dark quartz hanging off of it.  I debated just mixing gold/silver in the overal bezel and somehow switching the dominant color to the front on the appropriate side.  Then I decided to just do the whole entire side for each in one solid color.  That meant I had to start at the hookup (bottom center) instead of at one end and going around.  Just doing the hookup of the two metals was no biggie with a little planning, but the loops really complicated it because I had to start with the gold completely to one edge and juggling 14 wires initially without being able to stabilize them with a temporary binder because I needed to free up one of the center wires to create the loops.  In retrospect, I would have preformed at least the first loop so I could have temp wrapped the bundle while I was stabilizing the end with the hook.  Things kept shifting where the loop I had to leave for the silver to hook in later needed to go, and I eventually put in a temporary spacer so I didn't lose it as I worked.  The silver side was easier since I could start wrapping at the lower corner and work toward the bottom center, hooked it together, then went back and finished going up the sides.

Anyway, that was the unexpectedly fiddly bits.  Other general design stuff, I did some random diagonals and wraps on the side, which looks pretty cool since it's such a deep bezel.  Mixed gold and silver together in the bail, the only place.  Debated on prongs versus kicking in wires, and decided I wanted less wire on the face of the stone.  I did curve the prongs to follow the grain of the wood a little, something a little different for me.  It doesn't show, but the white side is more shallow.  I brought it all flush to the front, but that leaves the white sunk in a little on the back.  On the back, laid in some tiny pearls in that sunk area, partly for appearance and partly for stability. 

The only other thing, I'm going to look at it for awhile, but I may rework the smokey quartz dangles and take out some of the larger white pearls.  I'll keep in a few of the flat pearls to tie the sides together, but I'm thinking the larger ones take away from the dark/light, silver/gold contrast a little.  Opinions?

Jeannie

Primordial

ACK!  I'm a newbie to FSOJ.  My apologies for missing the first week deadline (I thought they were due on Fridays!), but here is my submission one day late.  The murky green and black color scheme suggested the depths of ancient Earth history:  hence, "Primordial".  The necklace, "Primordial Swirl", is a versatile piece that can be worn with the art glass, onyx, and seedbead links in front--the triple-spiral stitched size-15 seeds and jet Swarovski bicones in front--or worn asymetrically to display the handwrought 14 gauge sterling silver hook and eye clasp.  The twisted art glass links are by unicornegifts.com, as are the yoyo art glass centers of the pendant blooms.  The separate pendants are created by encircling the yoyo's "waist" with size 15 charlottes and increasing sizes of seeds stitched in concentric peyote.  One pendant's petals are unicornegifts.com 's borosilicate glass drops interspersed with onyx briolettes.  The other's petals are small Czech pressed glass leaves.

thanks, everyone, for accepting my tardy entry!

so what date is week 2 due?