Been away for awhile

I haven't been able to craft jewelry for about a year due to illness.  It's great to be back at the jeweler's bench, it was like I'd never been away when I picked up my torch again.  There's something about  solder as it melts under the flame of the torch that is very refreshing to my spirit.  It's very enjoyable to be hammering, sawing and filing away, so grateful to be able to create jewelry again!

I'm working on new designs -- incorporating new gemstones,  new settings, and I'm signed up for classes to learn new techniques, which I'm really thrilled about.  Here's a picture of my latest design,  an almandine garnet ring, and my first listing at Dalkullan Jewelry which employs a prong setting.

Some of the new techniques I'll be learning are keum boo, a way to combine 24k gold foil permanently to sterling without using solder, engraving and carving metal, and enameling.  Whew!  I'm going to be busy! :)

It's great to be back, I've missed my blog and hearing for you, my wonderful blog followers!  Thank you so much for stopping by!

Tropical Leaf sterling silver earrings

I'm really excited about my newest listing at Dalkullan Jewelry .  It's a pair of earrings, called Tropical Leaf sterling silver earrings.  I crafted them using a technique invented by Charles Lewton-Brain, a master gold and silver smith. 

I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Lewton-Brain at the 2010 Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee.  He's a very nice gentleman, and it was great to see him in person, and exchange a few pleasantries.  He's also one of the founders of a wonderful website for jewelry artisans, called Ganoksin , which means 'orchid'.  If you've never been to Ganoksin, it's definitely a website you'll want to visit.  There's tons of information on jewelry fabrication, including videos, and it's all free! 

Back to the Tropical Leaf earrings --- I started by cutting out the basic leaf shape from sterling sheet, then folded it in half after first annealing the metal.  Annealing means to heat with a torch, then quench, or cool, in water.  This makes the metal soft (for metal, that is) and bendable.  After folding it in half, I began repeated cycles of hammering along the non-fold edge, alternating with annealing the metal.

After a course of hammering, the metal becomes work hardened, and becomes stiff and brittle.  Annealing changes the molecular structure of the metal, making it maleable again.  When I'd completed this cycle 4 times, I carefully opened  each leaf, and it arced into a lovely leaf shape along the spine.  I used pliers to carefully manipulate the edges of the leaf, creating extra folds. 

The next step was melting the end of a 20 gauge sterling wire to form a little ball at the end, then soldering it on the front of the leaf, to create a stem, which is also the earwire.  Some more shaping, filing,  sanding, polishing, and patinating, and the earrings were complete.

If you're interested in learning more about fold forming, Mr. Lewton-Brain has written a wonderful book on the topic, called Foldforming it's available at Amazon, among other places.

Sterling Buds -- Earrings

The newest creation, Sterling Buds, is up at my Etsy shop. I took the photos of them using my new lightbox, which I made myself from directions I found online. It's turning out to be very useful, because today is cloudy and rainy, without the lightbox I'd have been stuck as far as photography goes.

I've been learning how to set stones, so far I've done bezel setting, which involved carefully pushing around the rim of the metal cup the cabochon is nestled in, to rub over the metal and hold the stone in. It's definitely harder than it looks to do, and takes a surprising amount of force. That's how the lapis cabochons in Sterling Buds were set.

Yesterday a box of supplies from Rio Grande, a wonderful source of jewelry making things, arrived. I'm excited about it, but also have a certain amount of trepidation, because I'm going to branch out into a new method of stone setting, tube setting. It involved drilling out the end of a tiny piece of sterling tubing, just the right size for the gemstone to sit down into the hole, and then rubbing the rim down over the edge of the stone. I'm going to be working with 3mm faceted gemstones, which are pretty tiny, so please wish me luck, and steady hands! I'll keep you posted how things are going.

Moon and Stars -- Sterling and Pearls

Moon & Stars, in sterling with pearl dangles, is a completely hand fabricated design. I begin with a sheet of sterling, and punch out two disks. The next step is trickier, taking out the central disk, to leave the hole in the first disk.

I have a heavy sheet of plastic, with holes of various diameters cut out in it, and line up the correct size hole over a sterling disk, until I have it just right, then mark the location with a Sharpie. I use that mark to line up the disk in the cutter, then punch out the hole. I could also use a jeweler's saw to make the disks, but I prefer to use a disk cutter -- it makes perfectly round disks every time.

The next step is to metal pieces of sterling scrap for the round sterling balls. I put the scrap on a charcoal block, and melt the silver with a torch. It's a lot of fun, the metal gets shiny, and then begins to curl up on itself, until it forms a nice round ball with a flat bottom. If I want to make a completely round sphere of sterling, I'd just scoop out a little hemisphere in the charcoal block to place the scrap sterling in before melting.

I do the finishing of the disk before I solder the sterling balls on. It's much easier to file, sand, and texture the disks beforehand, which is something I've learned from experience. I used a coarse file to create the texture on the disks, suggesting the surface of a moon after oblique meteor impact.

After sweat soldering on the sterling balls with medium solder, I attach the two jump rings using easy solder. Since the medium solder needs a higher temperature to melt than easy solder, the sterling balls stay securely soldered.

The final steps are attaching the freshwater pearl dangles using wire wrapping -- pearls are too delicate to take the heat of soldering, and adding handcrafted sterling earwires. And voila! A new earring design is complete, ready to be photographed and listed at Dalkullan Jewelry.

Hammered Brass Earrings

Here is the finished project. I decided against adding the bronze dyed freshwater pearls, I think just the two metals look so lovely, and the simple elegance of the design doesn't need any more adornment.

I textured the brass part of the earrings with a ball pein hammer, and then annealed the metal. Annealing is heating with a torch until the crystalline structure of the metal becomes malleable again. When metal is worked, it becomes harder and brittle, but annealing it makes it easy to bend again. Then I did a final dapping, to shape the earrings. With the addition of handcrafted sterling earwires the earrings were finished.

The background in the photo is a pottery piece I inherited from my Aunt, the same Aunt from Dalarne in Sweden that Dalkullan Jewelry is named for. My Aunt owned an inport shop in Chicago called Dalkullan, which means 'girl from Dalarne' which she was, and I chose the name to honor her memory, and my Father's, who was also from Dalarne.

What Exactly Is Sterling Silver?

There is a common misconception about sterling silver that I'd like to address, and also discuss precious metal vs base metal in jewelry making.

I've started making jewelry in sterling instead of base metal. I like the look of burnished copper and brass, but many women prefer precious metal. And with the amount of time it takes me to make one piece of jewelry, it makes more sense to use sterling silver. My designs involve a lot of wire work, and putting 2 or 3 hours labor into a piece makes it deserve a higher price than I feel comfortable with charging for a jewelry piece made of base metal.
Here's an interesting fact about sterling silver. It isn't pure silver. Pure silver is called 'fine silver', and isn't used very often, because of its' softness. Sterling is an alloy of silver, and is sometimes marked .925 This signifies that it's 92.5 % silver, and the rest an alloy, usually copper.
Another type of sterling, is Argentium silver, which is never less than 93% silver, and has a bit of germanium in addition to the copper, which acts to retard tarnishing. Some of the silver wire I use is Argentium sterling, and I can see the difference in the length of time before it begins to tarnish.