Contrariwise ramblings

The person who originally commissioned this pendant decided not to purchase this piece. The silverwork on it was bigger than she expected.  So you'll be able to find it listed in my Etsy shop.





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I think these are amongst the best cabs in my collection.  Each is so unique and would make an incredible ring or pendant.

I'm offering these for custom designs.  They'll be listed in my shop on Wednesday.

1. Amethyst Sage. I love this stone and  can't seem to pass them up.  This cabochon contains both purple agate and feathery plumes with gold highlights in a lovely assymetrical shape. Size: 25 x 30 mm

2. Galah porcelain agate. This is a very special agate from Agate creek in North Queensland Australia. The pink color combined with the banded patterns is so beautiful. (Collected 15 years ago by a well known opal and agate seller from Queensland Australia.) Size: 20 x 22mm

3. Blue Moss Agate - This Blue Moss is features blue and black mossy inclusions in a clear/milky white agate base.  An exquisite cab. Size: 17 x 15mm

4. Morrisonite Jasper. UPDATE 6/17/2010:  this one is now sold.  It's been replaced with a bright yellow and red Mookaite in my Etsy listing

5. Ocean Jasper. (One of my favorite stones) Here's a striking and unusual green and white Ocean Jasper cab with green orbs outlined by a white lacy halo. It also features a milky white agate covered druzy pocket. So icy. Size: 27 x 18mm

 ALSO, tomorrow I'm planning to post some things I've been working on.  One is a finished ring and the other is a work in progress.  (Yes, that turquoise pendant.  It's been giving me all sorts of headaches, but I think it's finally coming along.  It's been quite a learning experience for me.)

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Creating each piece of new jewelry is a unique experience.  Sometimes a design comes from seemingly nowhere and almost creates itself, and sometimes the entire process is a struggle.  This necklace has definitely been the latter.

I bought this stone almost 2 years ago.  It was in a pile of tourmalated quartz cabs.  I picked it up because I liked it and it was different than most of the other cabs.  (Honestly, I'm not sure that it's tourmalated quartz.  Any thoughts out there on what it might be?)

Two years ago I was just starting to learn how to solder and set cabs.  So I when I initially created the bezel for this stone, I was really disappointed.  It was a great stone but it looked so boring and I didn't have the skills to do anything to help enhance it.  So I threw it into a box of silver scraps and half-finished works.

About 6 months ago I took it out again and started playing with it.  I drew a lot of sketches and eventually decided on the details - leaves, flowers, a bail that curves behind the stone, and an assymetrical hand-made clasp.

But even after I finished the necklace, it still proved to be obstinate!  I've spent several session trying to photograph it, and I still haven't been able to capture the unique patterns within the stone.  So far the photo of the necklace sitting in my hand is the closest to what the cab looks like in person.

If you want to see more photos, they can be found here.


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I've become absolutely fascinated with Morrisonite Jasper and have bought quite too many cabochons recently. (I just can't help myself .)  This is the first one that I've set.

Morrisonite Jasper is known as the King of Jaspers.  It's a rare stone that is known world-wide for its deep rich colors and unique patterns. I think you can see why.

Until I started working with cabochons, I never appreciated how special they are.  Some unique stones can only be found in incredibly small areas - for example, in just a single riverbank.  Morrisonite comes from a mine on one side of the Owyhee River canyon in southeastern Oregon near the Idaho border . It's no longer mined .

Therefore, as with Morrisonite, the supply of many beautiful materials is limited. Once gone, they're gone forever.

I love buying cabs online. I think it’s because, when they arrive in little packages in the mail, I get as excited as if it was Christmas morning! And when I open them, it’s always a surprise.

I’ve recently bought some new cabochons from Dale at JustCabs. When this Snake River Dendritic Agate arrived in the mail, it took my breath away.

The dendrites form a perfect miniature tree, which seems to be sitting on a golden brown hillside. If you use your imagination, you can see mountains behind it, also in shades of golden brown. The background color of this agate is white, but it glows with hints of peaches and purples.

The entire scene felt very Japanese to me, so I decided to set the stone to emphasize that feeling. I cut pieces of silver to create a bamboo twig to sit next to the stone. 

I thought about cutting out a design on the back, like I've done before.  But I had already put in so much time into this setting - and I was anxious to get it finished - that I decided to just do a little curlique as part of the bail in the back.

I just listed it in my shop.  More photos can be found there.

During the day I have a full-time job, but in the evenings and weekends I steal away a few hours working on my hobby and improving my techniques.

Depending on what else is going on in my life, this may mean that I may not get to my workshop at all for a while.  But on a good week, I might get as much 12 hours.

In the past couple of weeks, I've gotten some gorgeous stones which have inspired me to create new pieces of jewelry - but I've been so intent on working on them that I didn't want to use my spare time to take photos!  So I have a lot of new jewelry to photograph and list in my shop.

Today I finished this new ring and decided it was time to take some photos!

The stone in this ring is a black lace agate.  Nature created a perfect miniature landscape within this wonderful stone.

The agate has an image of autumn reeds in the foreground bordering a flowing stream.  In the background clouds float in the late-evening sky.  A full moon peeking behind the clouds illuminates the scene 

To complement the flora of the stone, hand-cut leaves are asymmetrically positioned on the setting and the motif is continued in the band.

A signature dragonfly can be found on the back.

More photos of this, my latest ring, are found here.

I made so much jewelry over the Christmas break, that I'm still way behind posting about it in my blog and listing it in in my online shop.  And here's another piece that I finally got around to photographing.

I made the band of this ring by fusing silver. Fusing silver is a method of joining it without solder.  The metal melts only on the surface, leaving the center unchanged.  As you can imagine it's pretty unpredictable.

This ring was an experiment that somehow worked.

I originally planned to antique the silver, but after seeing the result I couldn't.   I just loved the way the silver curliques are incredibly shiny and crisp against the background of the band.  And because of the extreme heat I used to fuse the metal, the silver on the band reticulated, leaving it with a wonderful soft sheen.

Only after I made the band, did I decide upon the stone.  I had a chunky square amethyst and thought it contrasted nicely, so I bezel set it on the band.  (For those of you who do silversmithing, I think you can appreciate how hard it is to bezel-set a stone on an uneven texture.)

I was so pleased with the way this ring worked out, that I decided to try fusing silver again.

Guess what.  It was a complete and frustrating failure.

After the abysmal failure at my second attempt at fusing, I think that this ring may end up being a one-of-a-kind Contrariwise creation.

If you want to see more photos of this ring, click here.



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Here's a pair of earrings that I thought I sold but I just relisted in my shop.

I bought these cabs earlier this year and I fell in love the set you see on the right and stayed up very late making the mountings for new earrings. I just couldn't resist working with my new purchases!

By 1 AM I'd finished 2 bezel settings and was trying to solder on some decorative bits. Then in an awkward moment, I dropped a mounting.

Awk!

I could hear it hit the concrete floor of my garage. A quick search didn't lead me to find anything -other than the realization that I really should clean under my soldering station. So I got a flashlight and searched everywhere!

Drat! I couldn't find it. Half an hour later, I gave up, thinking I could look more thoroughly after a good night's sleep.

The next morning, I must have spend over an hour searching for the missing mounting, and cleaning up in the garage as I went along . There was all kinds of crap under my soldering table - boxes from purchases, plastic bags, chemicals, stored stuff I might use some day - but no more.

I didn't want to give up. I'd spent too much time on the setting -as well as the time I spent searching for it- and it had to be somewhere.

After going through every inch of the floor, through the trash, underneath the cars, I decided to search my trash can once again. Maybe in my frenzy it got thrown away with the trash.

I looked through it, unfolding the little bits of paper and small plastic bags I'd crumbled and thrown away. Then finally, when opening up an old plastic bag, something fell out and I heard the sound of metal hitting the floor. THERE IT WAS!

Yes, now I could finish those earrings. FINALLY.

And here there are!

I'm pretty pleased with how these earrings turned out. They're different than anything I've ever made before. The stones are bezel-set with a decorative "frame" around the bezels. I also antiqued the silver to highlight the stones and the settings. These earrings have a real hand-crafted artsy look to them.

They not demure little earrings. At about an inch and 1/4 in height, they're are large and make quite a statement. The photo on the left gives you some idea of the perspective.



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Ever since I learned how to solder, I've fallen in love in setting cabochons. Rings, pendants, earrings...I just love making them.

As you probably can guess I can buy them faster than I can set them. Therefore, this has resulted in me buying way too many of them. Right now I have a small candy dish full of them.

They're not an inexpensive habit. I probably have several hundred dollars worth. This doesn't quite rival the amount of sterling sheet and wire that I have -which definitely amounts to more than a thousand or so dollars of metal.

(Please note: my husband will probably be reading this, so the figures I quote may be ever so slightly conservative.)

My cabochon stash comes from various sources: I know someone who's cut stones for a hobby for many years... I've discovered several lapidary shops in my local area ... a dealer from Russia frequents a local gem show with some unusual finds...and I scour Etsy for cool stones and great deals.

One day while browsing Etsy I found an unusual stone. It was monochromatic and the pattern was odd. Someone else might have not taken a second look..... but I like odd. And the more I looked at it, the more I liked it.

The problem with buying online, is that what you get is often a surprise in one way or another. Sometimes the size isn't really what you imagined. Sometimes the colors aren't what were pictured in the photo. Sometimes, the item is a true disappointment. But, sometimes, the surprise is amazingly pleasant.

When I opened my package from Etsy, I looked at the cabochon and went "huh".

It wasn't a bad "huh".

It was a just a surprised "huh".

The cabochon was......interesting. The more I looked at it, the more I liked it and the more I saw in it.

It took me a while, but I suddenly realized that this stone reminded me of a shard of old bone china with a vintage pattern of roses. And then I knew how I would have to set it. The setting would have to remind one of an old bouquet.

This was beyond what I had tried before, but I was more than willing to try something new. Surprisingly, the design came quickly. It was like the flowers inside the cabochon really wanted to be arranged!

And this is what I created. I call it, Still Life With Roses.

And many, many thanks to Lost Sierra, for his skills in pulling out a wonderful piece of art from a rock (can you believe it!) and allowing me the opportunity to create.



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Another cabochon from my Russian dealer!

This one caught my eye immediately and I had no idea what the stone could possibly be. An incredibly bright blue, but not quite the right shade to be turquoise. I was told that it was "Swedish Slag" and came from foundries in Sweden. I bought it (and I should have bought more!) and did a little research on it.

The blue stone is actually 500-year old glass from Sweden. But it didn’t start that way. It began its life in the 1400's when metal smiths would dump the waste product from iron they were smelting. This sludge or slag which they dumped outside their shops would accumulate in piles which got buried for centuries. During that time it changed into this glass-like stone which is now being mined. Different minerals or metals would make the slag different colors. This one was probably contaminated with cobalt, creating this lovely blue color.

So wearing this ring means wearing the ultimate in recycling. 14th century sludge on your finger!

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I know a dealer who sells gemstones that come from all around the world, but especially Russia. He comes to Indianapolis a couple of times a year and I've bought some amazing cabochons from him.

During his last visit, I picked up way too much stuff (again!) and I'm going to have the pleasure of working with the beautiful stones for quite a while.

Among the items I picked up were some intensely purple charoite.

I've seen charoite before and for a while I assumed it might be synthetic because of the incredible color, luster, and swirly patterns in the stone. Charoite can be so incredibly purple that it’s almost hard to believe that this stone occurs naturally.

But they're real and they're only found in Russia.

If you've seen my silver jewelry, you know that I like to incorporate swirls. But I haven't done so in a ring until know.

This design almost seemed to create itself - I guess the swirly patterns in the stone inspired me. There are swirls on either side of the stone and little graduated spheres of silver to balance the pattern.

Rather than using a plain half round wire to make the band, I cut out heavy silver sheet to create a wide band and then accented it with spirals and stampings. Then everything was oxidized and polished to bring out the details.

I really love how the band turned out and think I have to make a band (sans stone) just for me!

(Did you get the reference in this post's title? If not, maybe the name of my ring will help. Click here to see it.)

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I posted the story behind this ring recently. I would like to thank everyone for their comments. You guys are great. A few thought that the lead photo didn't seem to show off the tourmalated quartz stone very well. And I absolutely agree with them.

Since then, I bet I've taken at least 200 photos of this ring and none of them really do it justice.

I think this is probably the best I've been able to get:

Still not great, but at least you can see the tourmaline fibers a little better.

When I reach the point when the photography and editing take almost as much time as making the ring, it's time to quit. I think I've reached that moment.

In the meantime, I've made a couple more rings! Expect to be seeing them posted really soon. (I've just got to get those photos to look better. Sigh.)

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If you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I recently had a wonderful time spending lots of money at a local Bead and Gemshow. (I only wish there were more shows. The next one isn't until October! I don't know how I'm going to be able to stand it.) Amongst my purchases were some tourmalated quartz stones. I set the first one today:

This particular stone is unusually dark because it's just so amazingly full of tourmaline fibres running through it! Sitting on a counter, it almost looks like ebony - although it picks up little diamond glints when you turn it. But, best of all, when you hold it up to the light, you can see the crystalline fibers.

Look at all those fibres! Isn't it amazing!

I cut the back of the setting out, so that light could stream in and let the character of the stone shine through.

I loved the triangular shape of this stone which cried out for a contemporary setting.

I was torn between making this into a pendant or a ring.

I thought it would look great as a pendant with the point hanging down. But at the last moment, I changed my mind and you can see the result.

(Oh, and please ignore my fingers. Just look at the ring. I spent the entire day soldering and my skin is so dry. This is when the "soften" filter on photoshop comes in so handy.)

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My son's girlfriend's birthday is coming up and I wanted to get her something. So I asked my son what she might like. He immediately suggested that I should make her some earrings.

Now, you have to realize that I was quite flattered. My son actually thinks my jewelry is nice enough to be given as a gift to someone he cares about!

This is the way I feel about it. Strangers and acquaintances might say that they like your jewelry, but they might just be trying to be nice. But I know that own family wouldn't think twice about telling me what they really feel!

Amethyst is one of her favorites. So I proposed that I would simply bezel-set some cabochons that I have. How could one go wrong with that?!

I set out to make the earrings this past weekend. But something happened.

When I made the bezels, the earrings just seemed to be asking for more.

It wasn't my fault. They seemed to make themselves - my jewelry seems to have a way of doing that.

So in stead of simply-set amethysts, this is what I made:
I've never made anything like this before, and I never even sketched out the design. It just happened.

I guess next weekend I'll try to make the amethyst earrings I originally set out to make. Maybe this time I'll get them done right.

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A few weeks ago I had a great time at a local Bead and Gem Show and since then have been working on making new jewelry from all the treasures I got. It takes me a while because, with my full-time job, the only time I have available to solder is on weekends. Just this past weekend, I finished these Sleeping Beauty turquoise earrings.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23663161

The dealer I bought these cabochons from must have had hundreds of Sleeping Beauty cabs rattling around in a box and my daughter spent a long time sorting through them to find matching pairs for me.

Sleeping Beauty turquoise is one of the most highly-prized turquoise in the world today. I think you can see why. It's an intense, medium blue with moderate black matrix.

These particular stones were amongst the largest I bought. They measure about 12 x 7 mm. You can get an idea of how big they are in the photo on the right.

As accents, I added little balls of solid sterling to the sides. That's how I recycle my little bits of leftover silver - by melting them down to add as accents to my jewelry! (Or, punish my silver pieces that misbehaved and didn't turn out how I wanted them to.)

I decided to give up buying posts and have started making my own. Somehow, they seem more sturdy to me than the bought ones. I'm also getting better at soldering them onto the backs of the earrings. In fact, it's almost fun now!



Oh, and I'm sure I'll be making more turquoise earrings. I still have a few matching pairs left:

Just to tease you a bit, I'll let you know that I will be posting some new amethyst cabochon earrings later this week.

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I have so many pieces of unfinished jewelry that they're crowding my desk drawers and filling up little storage containers. Some are unfinished because I'm not sure I like the direction they're going. Others are unfinished because my ADD took my attention elsewhere.

(Look! A butterfly!)

A few months ago, thinking that I should look ahead to spring, I bought some light colored cabochons from a friend of mine. I planned to set them and have them listed in my Etsy shop for the season. I think I made bezels for most of them, but only a few stones got set. This was one of them.

Honestly, I've never been a huge fan of blue lace agate, but I loved the waves in this stone as well as its pale blue color. I can see it going with so many outfits.

I had a lot of fun cutting out the back of the pendant. Rather than cutting an oval to match the shape of the stone, I wanted to add a little whimsy. And I only broke 3 saw blades cutting it out. (Hey, I'm getting better!)

The pendant's been finished for a couple of months. After it was done, I purchased a ball chain because I thought the chain would accent the silver balls that are part of the design. But while I waited for mail to delver the chain, I lost interest and basically forgot about this piece.

But it was a lovely spring day today and the light from the outdoors was wonderful. I suddenly remembered the pendant and thought - why not see if I could get a good photo of it.

By the way, I don't know if you noticed it, but I've been using a different background in my photos. Can you guess what the background is? It's a black leather barstool! I think it really brings out my silver jewelry.

Oh, and to the right is just a small portion of my unfinished bezels that I mentioned.

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Here's another new piece I've worked on recently. A pendant, bezel-set in silver:
I love the light green color of this stone which is perfect for spring and summer. I bought the stone, along with some others, from a friend of mine. He's a retired professor who's had hobbies in metalwork and lapidary - and now he's made it into a business for himself.

He cut and polished this stone himself and told me what it is - but I promptly forgot the name! So I haven't listed it in my Etsy shop. Not to worry. I'll should be seeing him this weekend at a local bead and gem show, and I'll ask him. (But THIS TIME, I'll write the name down.)

I've also been practicing sawing metal. (And breaking a lot of saw blades in the process!) Usually the backs of pendants are open and openings are symmetrical or cut close to the bezel. I thought I'd try something different and make an interesting opening in the back:
What do you think?

Oh. And did you notice those little silver balls on the side? I recently had a project go a bit awry and it had to be punished. Oh yes. It melted down nicely into lovely little spheres of molten silver.

Bwahahahahahahah!

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The Earth Bazaar is having an end of the year sale and I picked up a few things....some tourmalines, swiss blue topaz, aquamarine, rose quartz, and peridot.


I love their online store. Their regular prices are outrageous, but if you order from their weekly specials, you can get some pretty good deals . And the quality is outstanding. I only order their grade A stones. They're the clearest and the cuts are so crisp. Not cheap, but oh so pretty.

Christmas isn't over, but from my selection, I think I've already begun longing for spring. (I didn't even realize it when I ordered these stones last week.)

What can I say. I can't resist a few more baubles. I've already got a few new designs in mind.

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I've been trying my hand at making hoop earrings, lately. And these earrings suddenly emerged. (Yes, they really do that. New designs have a way of making themselves. It's almost like I have nothing to do with it.)


I don't know why, but they somehow remind me of the paintings of Mondrian. I know he mostly worked with squares and right angles. But if he had painted circles instead of squares, I could image this design element in his work.

I really like the way the spaces around the smaller circles and larger circles are balanced. And the way that small hoop on the bottom hangs down. I think I need to do a bracelet in this pattern - but with heavier silver.

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