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YOJ09-26 Prong Set Pendant

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-26 Prong Set Pendant (2009)
Prong Set Pendant (2009)
Sterling silver, labradorite
Constructed, cold joined
Private Collection

I found this labradorite in my stash again recently while working on the prong set pendant tutorial.

I’m rediscovering my love of stones, and am fantasizing about going to Bancroft to *shop*!  Having put myself on a buying moratorium for the last few years, I normally go to the gemboree just to have a look around.

When I floated the idea of going this year, my DH surprised me by suggesting I go by myself!  It’s a long drive to take the boys on, and since they don’t show much interest in rocks (other than the ones they can throw into water), the show is wasted on them.

Hmmm…. the possibilities…

More photos:

YOJ09-26 Prong Set Pendant (2009)
YOJ09-26 Prong Set Pendant (2009)
YOJ09-26 Prong Set Pendant (2009)

YOJ09-25 Netted Pendant

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-25 Netted Pendant (2009)
Netted Pendant (2009)
Fine silver, sterling silver
L 6.0 cm x W 2.5 cm

I’m running a bit behind with my YOJ postings, but I have been keeping up with doing the pieces.  My focus has been on preparing for my class, which starts 9 days from today!  This netted pendant is one of the projects for the class.

The good news is that I will get all of the tutorials done.  The bad news is that I have no idea if my wire is going to arrive in time!

Getting the supplies for these classes has really tested my patience. Back when I worked in the mining industry, the gentleman I worked for always reminded me to prepare for Murphy’s Law.  I’ve been reminded of that over and over in the last few weeks…

I do my best to support Canadian companies, partly because I believe in buying locally, but also because that way I don’t have to deal with the extra hassle of shipping, customs, duties and fluctuating exchange rates.

But some suppliers really make it a pain in the ass to deal with them.

Case in point:  John Bead, a trade-only wholesaler and beader’s heaven.  They would be an ideal Canadian supplier if they actually had the things I needed IN STOCK!!!  Three weeks ago I went to JB – my first visit in years – and I was reminded why I don’t bother to shop there unless I absolutely have to.  The warehouse is a frustrating jumble of aisles and bins.  Just finding things is the first challenge.  Then the flat nose pliers I wanted were out of stock.  I had to settle for a cheaper, lighter weight version.  The round nose pliers – every style – were out of stock.  The only pliers they did have in stock were their own house brand – at $20 a pop.  They didn’t have enough spools of 26 gauge copper wire, so I had to buy half of them in brass.  No 1.5 mm antique copper chain in stock.  Barely any 2 mm copper beads in stock.  This is a wholesaler, remember, with several thousand sq. feet of showroom space…

*If* they had had the pliers, I would have been well over their minimum purchase requirement.  As it was, I ended up having to visit their Swarovski room and buy a bunch of Swarovski crystals I didn’t really want or need to make up the difference.  And even there, the stock on some of the common colours was patheticly low!

So, if you’re in Canada, looking for wholesale Miyuki, Swarovski or Preciosa, John Bead is a go-to supplier if you can meet their minimum.  As for me, I think next year I’ll deal with the shipping costs, and customs charges, and just order from Rio Grande…

And increase the cost of the kit…I’m dealing with a very tight budget here, so that makes sourcing reasonably priced supplies problematic.

Thankfully, I found another supplier for the round nose pliers – Habsons Jeweller Supplies in Vancouver.  They had the quantity I needed in stock, and they had them packed and shipped the day after I ordered them.  This is the second time they’ve come through for me on a hard-to-find item.  Last year I bought a half dozen wooden ring mandrels from them – impossible to find elsewhere in Canada, but they had them.  I love these guys.  Great customer service.  Actually, maybe I’ll order from them first next year…

Next was the still-ongoing misadventure with the copper wire.

There are NO suppliers of shaped copper wire in Canada.  So, ordering from the US is required.

I placed my order in mid-June, with expected delivery in 10 business days.  The time came and went, and when I followed up this last week, I found out the supplier missed something on the paperwork.  The package had been returned and had sat in their warehouse for a week before being sent out again.  So now I’m sitting here hoping the package will arrive in the next few days.  If it’s not here by Tuesday, I have to re-order the whole lot (US$900+), and have it sent up here by express overnight courier.  Cost of the courier:  US$102.  *gloom*  And I have to re-source the cabochons because I cleaned them out of their 22×30 mm with my last order.   And then I’ll have two complete sets of the wire I need for the classes once the other order finally does arrive.  The owner is doing her best to be helpful, even taking time out of her vacation to deal with this for me.

In the meantime, I’m beavering away, working on tutorials, putting together what I can of the kits, and trying not to stress out…

YOJ09-24 Shiva’s Pomander

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-24 Shiva's Pomander (2009)
Shiva’s Pomander (2009)
Fine silver, sterling silver
Pendant: L 6.1 cm x W 3.2 cm
Chain: 88 cm
Constructed, coiled, cold joined, flameworked

A little over a year ago, Perri Jackson sent me Strange Attractor, a stunning wire bead she’d made as a thank you gift for helping her with a tutorial.  Looking at it, I wondered how the structural coiling technique she used could be adapted to something other than a bead.  Something like a locket maybe… It got me puzzling…

An opportunity to experiment came in the form of a call for entry from Rails End Gallery.  Every year the gallery hosts a show featuring work by the faculty of the Haliburton School of the Arts.  This year, the theme is “Vessel”.

Originally, I had wanted to make the vessel to house this heart, but screwed up – err… made a Design Choice that ended up creating a much larger container than intended. The original design would have hung horizontally, with the chain running through the centre.  With this one, the design lends itself better to a vertical orientation.

This week when I was talking to Perri, I mentioned that I was working on a locket-type piece for the show.  She asked what it looked like.  “Sort of like a Shivalingam,” I said.

So… the piece is heading out the door today to get sent up to Haliburton.  There is, of course, the obligatory Artist Statement that goes with it:

In Hinduism, the lingam is a symbol of Shiva. Worn in a similar fashion as a Christian cross, the intent is to draw the blessings of the Higher Power to the wearer. Using structural coiling and weaving techniques developed by Perri Jackson, I decided to interpret this symbol as a pomander worn over the solar plexus. It allows the wearer to carry a prayer or fresh flowers within: a reminder to always recognize the Source of all life’s gifts.

VESSEL: HSTA Faculty Exhibition
Rails End Gallery & Arts Centre
23 York Street
Haliburton, Ontario, K0M 1S0
June 30 – July 30, 2009
www. railsendgallery.com

More photos:

YOJ09-24 Shiva's Pomander (2009)
YOJ09-24 Shiva's Pomander (2009)
YOJ09-24 Shiva's Pomander (2009)
YOJ09-24 Shiva's Pomander (2009)
YOJ09-24 Shiva's Pomander (2009)
YOJ09-24 Shiva's Pomander (2009)

YOJ09-23 Standard Form Ring (Again)

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-23 Standard Form Ring
Standard Form Ring
Sterling silver, jasper
Constructed, cold connected
Size 10

Yes I’m posting the same project as in Week 2.  At that point I had written the instructions for the tutorial, and the carnelian ring posted was the product of the writing process.   This time the ring is the product of the photography process.  I have now completed two of the six tutorials I need to write for my class.  Number three is written and transcribed to computer; photography for that project will happen tomorrow.  With any luck, number three will be done by Wednesday.

I’m now into the most challenging part of my schedule for the year.  With five weeks to go until my class, I’m multitasked up to wazoo.  I’ve been taking advantage of the convenience my netbook is offering me:  I can sit out on the front porch and work in the warmth of a sunny day while my children play in the yard.  If they are working on an educational CD doing “homework” on the clunker laptop in the kitchen, I can also sit at the table and do “my” homework.

Life is humming along…

Next week’s project will be much more spectacular, I promise.  It’s in the finishing stages now, and will be on its way to the Rails End Gallery this week for the HSTA Faculty Exhibition, “Vessel”, which opens on June 30.

YOJ09-22 Viking Knit Bracelet

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-22 Viking Knit Bracelet (2009)
Viking Knit Bracelet (2009)
Fine silver, sterling silver
Nalbinding, cold connected
L 20.5 cm x W 0.4 cm

I’m hard at work on the tutorials for my class, so this week’s project is the product of that work.  I’ve been doing a lot of photography, and editing and layout.  I’ve been pretty much eating, sleeping and breathing the project.  The first tutorial is finished, and the second is well in hand.  Four to go… and six weeks until the classes start.

More photos:

YOJ09-22 Viking Knit Bracelet (2009)
YOJ09-22 Viking Knit Bracelet (2009)
YOJ09-22 Viking Knit Bracelet (2009)

YOJ09-21 Viking Knit Torus

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-21 Viking Knit Torus (2009)
Viking Knit Torus (2009)
Sterling silver
Nalbinding
L 55 mm x W 55 mm x D 10 mm

I’m insane.

People who know me are familiar with this quirk in my personality, but every now and again I feel compelled to demonstrate it.  Hence, this week I decided – despite numerous pressing deadlines – I absolutely had to attempt making a torus out of viking knitting.

Nalbinding was historically used for things like socks, mittens, bags, hats and the like.  In wire, it’s been used mostly for chainwork.  To the best of my knowledge, no one has tried using it for sculptural wirework, and certainly no one has tried using it to construct a torus.  Loren Damewood, who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, has made a toroid bracelet out of string, with plans to attempt it in wire, but his technique is marlinspike knotting.

Thanks to my experience making the Merry Meet necklace, I decided to make the first attempt in polymer coated wire.  I have pounds of the stuff, and it’s great for experimenting.  Unfortunately though, it doesn’t lend itself to annealing, which meant I could only get as far as shaping the torus.  I couldn’t finish the seaming without risking wire breakage.

I’m contributing that first piece to The Metal Arts Guild of Canada’s call for Nuit Blanche 2009.

I’m completely obsessed with this idea, so decided that I would try one in silver.  At the Zilberschmuck “Connection” opening a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to Charles Funnell about viking knitting.  He had been trying to do some chainwork and was finding it challenging.  I commented that it would work better in fine silver than in sterling, because the metal is more maleable.  Unfortunately, the only fine silver wire I have on hand at the moment is 28 ga, and the idea of doing it in that fine a gauge really didn’t appeal to me.  So, I decided to try 24 ga sterling in dead soft.

Well…

It was easier to work than the polymer coated copper, but I still ended up with a blister on my pinky from pulling wire.  After a while, even wearing a bandage on the finger didn’t help.  Yes, I suffer for my art…

YOJ09-21 Viking Knit Torus (2009)
The main challenge of a torus is making it seamless. The rest is just like making tubing.  I figured out a way of making the stitches nice and tight, thanks to a tool that Loren uses for his turks head knot rings.  Three stitches before the finish, and despite frequent annealing, the wire broke on me!  :bang head:

Luckily the repair was easy, and I was able to finish it up.  I spent far too many hours on this, but I’m very pleased with it and want to make more as time and my finger permit.  The ghost of Frank Hoffmann is whispering in my ear again though:  for the amount of work involved, I should be making it in gold.

More photos:

YOJ09-21 Viking Knit Torus (2009)
YOJ09-21 Viking Knit Torus (2009)
YOJ09-21 Viking Knit Torus (2009)

YOJ09-20 Viking Knit Ring

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-20 Viking Knit Ring (2009)
Viking Knit Ring (2009)
Fine silver, malachite, howlite
Nalbinding, single knit, constructed, cold joined

I finally got back to writing this week!  I have six tutorials to write in preparation for my class in Haliburton in July.  So far I have completed writing the draft on one of them.  Photos and actually putting the tutorials together are still outstanding.  I’m keenly aware of how quickly the time is going, so a few weeks ago I decided to put Tigger into daycare two days as week.  That is giving me several hours of uninterrupted work time, since it co-incides with the days that Thumper is in school.  What Heaven!

Usually I make the project, writing the steps as I go.  Then I put the text aside for a week or so, come back to it and reconstruct it following my instructions.  If I stumble on any part of it, that means a rewrite is in order.   Refining continues as I take the photos and do the layout.  Lots of work… which means I gotta start makin’ like a bread truck and haul buns…

This week, I was working on instructions for viking knitting.  I experimented with incorporating 2 and 4 mm beads, which led to a screw up – err… “Design Choice” – when I went to draw the chain.  I ended up having to take the chain apart, but salvaged enough to make this ring.  It’s been an interesting experiment in timing myself as well – construction of enough chain to make a bracelet is taking a little over 2 hours.  Adding the beads was just for my amusement, and won’t be part of the final instructions.

More photos:

YOJ09-20 Viking Knit Ring (2009)
YOJ09-20 Viking Knit Ring (2009)
YOJ09-20 Viking Knit Ring (2009)

YOJ09-19 Mother & Child Pendant

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-19 Mother & Child Pendant (2009)
Mother & Child Pendant (2009)
Sterling silver, formed, flame-worked
L 5.4 cm x W 2.4 cm

It’s Mother’s Day, so my piece this week is in honour of Motherhood.

I’ve had pregnancy on my mind a lot in the last week, because last weekend I had a miscarriage.  That was why I didn’t post anything for Week 18. What bugs me is not that I had the miscarriage – it’s that I had originally planned to wait until May 1 to do the pregnancy test.  Had I followed through, I would never have known I was pregnant.  Instead, I did the test on the 27th.  My husband was completely gobsmacked when I told him the news:  he thought I was too old to have any more babies.  I had to explain to him that even though I am of a somewhat advanced childbearing age, until I actually stop having periods, I can still get pregnant.  On the 30th I went to visit my GP, and that afternoon I started spotting.  I spent the evening at Emergency, where they took some blood and sent me home.  On Saturday, I started bleeding in earnest, so I went back to Emerg, where more blood tests and 5 hours of waiting confirmed what I already knew:  the pregnancy had aborted.

I knew the chances of this baby going full term were very slim.  I’m on medication that can cause birth defects, and, in the second and third trimesters, is toxic to the fetus.  Even that aside, this would have been an extraordinarily difficult and potentially life-threatening pregnancy because of my various health conditions.  I swear, my warranty ran out after I turned 40…

I’m sad, but not as upset as I was with the miscarriage two years ago.  More than anything, the experience has left both my husband and I wishing we had met ten years earlier.  I am able to take comfort in the idea that I am still “Mommy” to five children:  two I cuddle every day, and now three others I cuddle in spirit.

So, here is the Mother, full with her Child.  The design is a bit abstract, and I decided that it would not work without a bit of soldering.  I’ve wanted to do a Mother & Child piece for a long time, and, I’m pleased to finally have a design I like.

Happy Mothers Day to all the Mommies who read this :-).

More photos:

YOJ09-19 Mother & Child Pendant (2009)
YOJ09-19 Mother & Child Pendant (2009)
YOJ09-19 Mother & Child Pendant (2009)
YOJ09-19 Mother & Child Pendant (2009)

YOJ09-17 Chalcedony Effervescence Pendant

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-17 Chalcedony Effervescence Pendant
Chalcedony Effervescence Pendant (2009)
Sterling silver, fine silver, chalcedony
L 3.0 cm x W 1.2 cm
Cold connected, flame worked

I went to the Toronto Gem Show today – and I was by myself!!  Woo hoo!  That meant I had the freedom to be able to browse, and chat with friends, and to shop.  I was looking for some things for my upcoming classes at Haliburton, but in the end decided that what I’ve found online is still a better bargain.  But… I couldn’t resist a strand of chalcedony brios I came across.  In a table full of stuff that looked like it was dyed, I found one package that had a beautiful opalescent glow.  So, despite being on a buying moratorium for the past three years, I decided those beads had to come home with me.  Even the sales lady commented about the package, saying that if I hadn’t bought it when I did, it wouldn’t have been around later – someone would have snapped it up.

Tonight I picked out one of the beads, and made this little pendant.  It looks somewhat similar to the pendant I made in Week 8, so I’ve giving it a similar name.

More photos:

YOJ09-17 Chalcedony Effervescence Pendant
YOJ09-17 Chalcedony Effervescence Pendant
YOJ09-17 Chalcedony Effervescence Pendant
YOJ09-17 Chalcedony Effervescence Pendant

YOJ09-16 Beaded Channel Ring

Posted on by dianne

yojwk16-beadedchannelring.jpg
Beaded Channel Ring (2009)
Sterling silver, constructed, cold worked
Size 5 1/2

My lack of energy is starting to concern me.  If this keeps up I’m going to haul my carcass off to the doctor and find out what’s going on.

For now, another simple offering this week – a beaded channel ring.  The tutorial for this ring was published in “Contemporary Bead & Wire Jewelry” by Nathalie Mornu and Suzanne Tourtillot, one of two projects I contributed to the book.

YOJ09-15 Beaded Puff Heart Pendant

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-15 Beaded Puff Heart Pendant
Beaded Puff Heart Pendant (2009)
Sterling silver & gold-filled beads, fishline
L 2.8 cm x W 2.5 cm x D 1.0 cm
Beaded, right angle weave

This week’s project is part one of a larger piece I’m working on for an HSTA faculty exhibition to be held at the Rails End Gallery in July.

This is the first time I’ve ever tried my hand at straight beading, and I have to say that I’ve developed a very healthy respect for the people who do this type of work.  This heart was created using a pattern by “Laura” published on the 3DBeading.com site.  I initially had the foolish idea to try it using wire, but gave up after about 5 steps.  Fishline is definitely the way to go. I would love to repeat this pattern using rubies, but there’s no way to thread the fishline into the itty-bitty holes the multiple times the pattern requires.

It turned out a little bigger than I originally wanted, but the impact on the overall design will be minimal, and may actually make the final piece more interesting.

More photos:

YOJ09-15 Beaded Puff Heart Pendant
YOJ09-15 Beaded Puff Heart Pendant
YOJ09-15 Beaded Puff Heart Pendant

YOJ09-14 Lame-O Earrings

Posted on by dianne

YOJ09-14 Lame-O Earrings
Lame-O Earrings (2009)
Sterling silver, Preciosa crystal

I’m feeling completely tired and shagged out.  And I haven’t even squawked!

I’m working on meeting a print deadline this week, so my focus is not on jewellery.  I do have an idea for my next major undertaking, and did work a bit on that over the past few days, but it’s still in the prep phase, not the construction phase.

So now it’s Sunday, and I don’t want to be late two weeks in a row.  So I’m posting a pair of lame-ass earrings, constructed in about 1 minute.  Don’t have the energy for anything more this week.

Other Musings

Blasts from the Past

Photo of the Day

Judith Goldstein