Tag: labradorite

Jewellery Day

Labradorite earrings

Today was going to be Candle Day, but Paul’s at home with some horrible lurgy, so it seemed rude to make the house smell when he’s feeling poorly. They may be nice fragrances once they’re in a candle, but they’re very strong while you’re actually making them!

I’m not feeling too brilliant myself, so I thought I’d start the day gently by making a couple of pieces of jewellery. The earrings above are a little treat for me, and I bought all of the necessary bits from Kernowcraft. They took less than five minutes to put together, and I’m really pleased with them. Despite having three pairs of holes in my ears, I’m always bemoaning my lack of nice earrings – so now I have some lovely faceted labradorite cabochons. They were so easy to put together that I might just have to treat myself to a few more.

Helen's bracelet

This lovely bracelet belongs to my friend Helen, the Bright Lady. It just needed extending a little bit, so I added a couple of extra jump rings, and replaced the original fiddly little fastener with a better one. Again, a simple five-minute job, with all the necessary bits coming from Kernowcraft.

I feel a little bit like a walking advert for them sometimes, but I’ve been shopping from their catalogue since I was a teenager and my Mum had to write cheques for me to send off in the post! Yesterday they announced a job vacancy on their Facebook page, for somebody to design the catalogue and look after the website, and I must admit I spent a little while looking up the price of houses in Perranporth just in case.

Beaded scarf – sneak preview

gemstone beads

Remember the Blackcurrant Surprise fabric I dyed back in August? The one that came out a lovely shade of grey? Well, it turned out to have another surprise in store for me. I’d folded it up and put it away while I decided what I wanted to do with it… and when I got it out, it had changed colour again! It’s now a pretty neutral beigey shade, and it still smells very faintly of blackcurrants.

It’s destined to be divided into three little scarves, each measuring about 50 x 150cm, with beading on the ends. The beads in the photo are all semi-precious stones. Smoky quartz on the left, moonstone in the middle and labradorite on the right. The sterling silver ring in the middle is set with a 12mm labradorite cabochon, and it’s adjustable so the scarf can be styled in different ways.

I chose the smoky quartz because its brown tones blend nicely with the fabric, but now I’m not sure whether or not it’s too dark. Perhaps once the beads are more spread out, with all three colours sprinkled in together, it won’t look quite so dramatic.

These are going to be Christmas presents, so  won’t be able to show you the finished scarves for a little while. In the meantime though, I do have some plans for these pretty little adjustable rings, so watch this space!

Stef’s Silk Scarf

Stef's Silk Scarf

Okay, so I did manage to get a little something done in between my increased hours at work. This was an extra little birthday gift for my mother-in-law.

I dyed the silk with tea, which came out a little bit paler than my previous experiment, but still a lovely colour. Very interesting on the silk too, as the tone seems to change in different light.

Stef's Silk Scarf

I hemmed all four edges by hand, using teeny-tiny slip slitches. Each corner has an equally teeny-tiny briolette bead dangling from it. The gemstones are labradorite, and the facets catch the light beautifully.

Stef's Silk Scarf

Each end of the scarf is embellished with leaf rubbings. Done using Inktense pencils, they picked up the detail of the leaves beautifully. Appropriately for a silk scarf, the leaves came from the mulberry tree at the Museum of English Rural Life.

Stef's Silk Scarf

Because no scarf is complete without a scarf ring, I set a matching faceted labradorite cabochon into one of Kernowcraft’s new easy-to-set rings. Because the band is adjustable, it’s perfect to use as either a scarf ring or to wear on your finger.

Stef's Silk Scarf

And here it is!

I’ve also been working on a tie-dyed turmeric scarf for myself. I did wear it last week, but I haven’t hemmed the long edges yet, so it needs a little bit more work. I’m so pleased with how Stef’s scarf ring turned out, and how incredibly easy it was to make, that I’m thinking I might need a brass and labradorite one for myself…

Silver Jewellery

Silver Jewellery Class

Looking through my photos on Flickr, I realised that I made quite a lot of things towards the end of last year that I didn’t show you! These pieces were all made on a silver jewellery course at Maiden Erlegh School, with tutor Cathy Newell Price.

The piece above is an adjustable ring featuring two smoky quartz cabochons. The top one’s faceted and the bottom one’s smooth. The band is slightly hammered to give it a bit of texture. I bought the fancy bezel strip, I didn’t make all those teeny-tiny prongs from scratch!

Silver Jewellery Class

This was an experiment with reticulating the surface of sterling silver to create a textured effect. You have to heat and re-heat the silver enough times so that the silver and copper begin to separate, with the silver molecules coming to the surface. Once that’s happened, you can use the blowtorch to create ripples – you just need to be very careful not to melt everything!

Silver Jewellery Class

Which, as it turns out, is what happened here. I got a bit carried away with the blowtorch on one of these little pieces, and melted one end. Because I wanted the two pieces to match, I then had to very carefully and deliberately melt the other one until they were sort of similar. I don’t mind that they’re not exactly the same – I quite like having fraternal rather than identical earrings. Shows they’re made by hand.

I’d originally intended to make a pair of cufflinks, using the larger pieces of reticulated silver for the front, and the smaller pieces for the back. Unfortunately I very quickly ran out of patience while trying to make a chain to join the large and small pieces together. All those tiny little links were so fiddly! So I decided to quit while I was ahead, and ended up with two lovely pairs of earrings instead.

Silver Jewellery Class

This was actually the first piece I finished, a labradorite ring. It’s ever so slightly too big for me, but I couldn’t bear to part with it. I wear it with a plain ring over the top to hold it in place, and the large stones prevents it from spinning around on my finger.

The course finished in December, and I promised myself that I’d do more work with silver back in the Shed. I have all the tools, and lots more stones to set… I just haven’t got around to actually buying any more silver. I’d love to make a pendant to match the labradorite necklace though. Kernowcraft have just got in a beautiful teardrop-shaped cabochon that would complement it perfectly!

Silver and Labradorite Ring

Silver and Labradorite ring

Well, it will be once I’ve soldered the bezel to the ring and set the stone!

Last August I did a short silver jewellery course as part of a week of courses at my local high school. They also run silver jewellery classes during term-time, but they’re so popular that they’re always over-subscribed. I asked to be kept on the waiting list, but I was rather taken by surprise when an email arrived letting me know that a place was available!

These are the results of two evenings’ work. In the first session I made the ring, which I’m really pleased with. Much better than my first two, although I can see from this larger-than-life photo that it’s not quite flat. In the second session I made the bezel for the stone, which still needs a little filing and polishing before it’s finished. Once that’s done I can solder it to the ring, and set the stone into place.

We were advised to go for a larger stone rather than a smaller one, so I went for a lovely 18x13mm labradorite cabochon from Kernowcraft. I thought the rose cut matched nicely with the hammered ring. Everything needs a thorough clean and polish, but I hope it’ll be lovely when it’s finished.

I’ve also bought a little pile of rose quartz cabochons in different sizes (hoorah for gift vouchers!), thinking that I’d like to use the classes to practice making different types of settings for the stones. But I bought a couple of smart shirts recently, and now I’m thinking that I might like to make some cufflinks. I can feel some experiments with textures coming on, I think.