KSWjewellery

stone setting

Ok, for those of you who know me, you will probably be aware that my OCD knows no bounds, and once I discover something new, I can't help myself but to get completely carried away! Claw setting is my new thing! Cerys did a demo for our second years last friday, and as part of the session I made a stone setting myself, and im ashamed to say it was my first attempt, but as far as first attempts go, it was pretty good!

This little beauty is my first ever attempt at claw setting, and I was so chuffed, its all I have wanted to do since!  making the claw setting are deceptively simple, and are a real challenge if you love tiny fiddly things, which I do, because everything has to be precise, because it is so obvious if its not.

 

There a a few ways of making the basket, for the second stone setting I tried this method, which is a little fiddly as it requires 10 solder joints, all in hard and medium, but it was better that trying to arrange all the pegs around the basket!

This is the first ring, the clear stone, where there was only one support, and to attach the setting to the ring base, I cut a section into a ring that I had made, and positioned it around the basket and soldered.

Once the whole piece had been soldered, the ring is then put into the pickle to clean and then I polished the whole unit on the buffing wheel, using tripoli and then the rouge.

Once its polished I then mark off the areas on the pegs with a permanent marker to create the seat, and then, very gently, I file the notches into the wire, and half set the stone using a pair of pliers. I cut the pegs and fully set the stone, and then burnish for a high shine.

So there we have it! I can see that claw settings will keep me going for a few weeks yet, and I have spent the last two days making a ruck of setting tools, so Im keen, and at the moment its all I can think about!

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New wedding dress rings and paper sculpture!

I have been working my little fingers to the bone of late as Christmas is approaching fast, and so are the Christmas weddings. It must be so romantic to get married at Christmas, if only we had some snow to just make it picture perfect! I have been making some new pieces to go into the shop during the last week, and Im so excited that these are finished because they really do look like precious stones, and they are made using wedding dress fabric.

I must say, I am particularly pleased with the heart version, its just so tiny! All of the shapes are available in the shop in any size that you wish, and each ring comes with two slim textured silver bands to make it a trio.

 On a different note altogether, yesterday Dave and I (Dave is a very talented demonstrator who is my right hand man in the workshop) gave a paper sculptur workshop yesterday to a group of students, and there were some really exciting pieces produced. The one above was made by Dave, as is the one below. they are my favourite of the day simply because it made the pages of the books compleatly different.

To produce the paper sculptures, all we did was fold the pages of the book, so that they were all the same, and the formed really solid 3D pieces. Dave left this one half finished and added an image of a man for the National Geographic, and it works so well!

Mine was a little bit less exciting, but I was so impressed with the forms that you can produce that i just got a bit carried away. This book was sliced using the bansaw so that the pages could have a distinctive fold in them.  My paper sculptures have now been added to my desk at work which is taking on a life of its own!

Ok, time to do some lecturing work!

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The patchwork cottage

Well the last few weeks have been rather busy, I have some winter brides to make some lovely jewellery for, and I have been busy planning my husbands birthday! talking of birthdays, it was my buddy Nikkiee's birthday two weeks ago, and because she loved my patchwork cottage sample I decided to make her a patchwork cottage quilt! although I must say, it never started its life as a quilt, it was supposed to be a sample, but it just grew and grew!

 
I went to visit Nikkiee on the weekend because she was having a girlie get together/ baby shower for the last time before she has her baby, which is due any time now. . . . . and im sooooo excited! I can't believe how quickly time has gone! We spent some time sprucing up the house in preparation for the evening, and there were loads of flowers, and these country house flowers always remind me of Nikkiee, shabby chic eat your heart out!

There are always some gorgeous flowers in her garden too, and I always love her garden, no matter what time of year because you never quite know what you will find! I have been giving some thought to my next lot of projects, and I have decided to begin making a big patchwork quilt to go on the bed, because I want to have  a stack of quilts next to the bed so that when its really nippy, there are a loads of snuggly blankets to hide under. I have also been going crazy with the rose room spray I bought the other week, so everything is smelly lovely, and all of my quilts have a distinctive rosy smell to them!

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