Contrariwise ramblings

Just a quick post to show you one of the things I was working on this weekend.

I bought the stone at a recent Bead and Gemshow. It was in a box marked "tourmalated quartz", but it didn't look like any of the other stones. (That's probably why it caught my eye.)

I really wanted to make sure I had the stone correctly identified so I took it to a local lapidary shop and the owner identified it as dendritic quartz. The dendrites are crystals formed in cracks and can sometimes even be mistaken for fossils. In the stone above, the crystal "dendrites" run up the middle of the quartz and form what look like ferns within the stone.

I oxidized the silver to bring out come contrast. Since the stone is mostly black and white, I think it complements it.

Luckily I made it in a size too large for my fingers, otherwise I might have been tempted to keep it myself! I just listed it in my Etsy shop.

Also, look at this moss agate ring:

I had tons of fun making it. The final design was quite different than I had intended. While the first ring just seemed to come together easily, this one took a long time to get right.

I think the patterns on the agate resemble continents. And it's encircled by a saturn-like ring with solid silver "satellites" that seem to orbit it.

(OK, maybe I'm letting my imagination get the better of me.)





Tomorrow, more about the woodchuck living in my swimming pool.

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