Sunday Soldering

This past Sunday, my friend Kris and I got together at Ye Olde Bead Shop to solder - it has been months since either one of us soldered, and we were so excited!

Kris and I share a "Kate Richbourg Connection" - let me explain: Kris took a tube riveting class from Kate at the Bead and Button show last year, and Kate was MY fabulously generous and talented partner in the last BSBP (Bead Soup Blog Party) - what a coincidence, right?

Kris purchased an autographed copy of Kate's Book Simple Soldering when she was up at Bead and Button, and she brought the book to the shop so we could try some of the projects - we joked that Kate was right there with us! I had previously borrowed the DVD from Kris, and enjoyed watching it so much - it is done SO well, and it was nice to put and face and name on my BSBP partner - it really felt like she was right there, talking to me, as I watched the DVD!

 Simple Soldering, by Kate Richbourg

We made 2 projects from the book on Sunday - the stacking rings, and the beads:

my stacking rings

textured & soldered silver saucer beads

The beads were very difficult to photograph - they are so shiny (after a spin in the tumbler) that they were almost too reflective to get a good pic.

I love my rings - wearing them now! Thanks for the help, Kate!

As I said last week, there is just not enough time to do everything I want to do - I wish I could solder more often! It is tough when you don't have designated work spaces (and time!) for all the different media - it's a pain having to put one set-up away in order to set up for soldering, or enameling, or glass fusing, or beadweaving, or whatever - when I win the lottery (that I never play, LOL) I am going to build a huge, beach front, airy studio with separate, well-appointed workstations for each and every one of my jewelry addictions!

Metal Dogwood Cuff

This cuff was truly a labor of love! I wanted to create an ornamental metal cuff, and had the idea for a sterling silver flower with leaves, and made several sketches, but initially balked at working with the sheet sterling - it's so expensive, and I was so afraid I would make a mistake!

Eventually I screwed up my courage, and started cutting the silver; I annealed, and folded the edges, and then deeply scribed the leaves for texture, following this up with liver of sulfur to enhance the ridges I'd created.

Attaching the flower and leaves was problematic, since I had already folded and textured the cuff. I was finally able to solder the leaves to the cuff, but I wasn't confident in my joins because only small areas took the solder, so the leaves were also riveted to the cuff. The height of the leaves prevented any soldering of the flower to the cuff, so I wired the flower to the cuff using Swarovski crystals to create the flower's center, with a pop of color. Graceful copper tendrils were then wired around the flower and leaves. I ultimately affixed a leather swatch to the inside of the cuff to hide all my rivets and wires, and protect the wearer's skin and clothing (even though everything was carefully filed down and smoothed!)

The cuff is malleable, so it will form to your wrist easily, and will fit up to size 7.5.

This elegant, contemporary piece of wearable art is now available in my Etsy shop.

SilverSmithing

I just returned from a week at William Holland Lapidary School, where I took my first Silver class.

So. Much. Fun!!

Had a great teacher (Hi, Bill!), and completed 4 projects, and have 2 partially done.

The class was structured such that we had lecture Sunday night for a couple of hours, and then started work bright and early Monday morning. There were 2 mandatory projects, and once we successfully completed those, we could move on to an independent project of our own design.

This bangle bracelet was our 1st mandatory project, and was a great teaching project and a good choice for a 1st project, because while it taught us a lot of metalwork techniques, believe it or not, this gorgeous bangle required only 1 solder! So we spent a long time prepping the piece - twisting the wire, hammering it, etc - and then got it set up for the solder, and although the teacher had demo'd it for us at his workstation, since it was each student's 1st time soldering, we were all a little nervous and unsure, so we would call him over to our workstations when we were ready, and then he would help each of us individually.

And it is a truly stunning bracelet!


The next mandatory project was a ring - the teacher had many cabochons to choose from, or we could use our own. I had taken a few with me, but once I saw this turquoise cab (made by my Silver teacher, who clearly has talents extending far beyond Silversmithing), I heard it calling my name, and decided to use it for my ring.

The ring was a very difficult project; many, many solder joins, as well as the other metalworking skills required to create it.

It took me most of 3 days to finish the ring, although I was able to jump around and work on my other 2 projects while I was waiting for equipment, or otherwise needing to wait before proceeding with another step on the ring. So it actually probably took only a total of a day and a half to finish the ring, not counting the interruptions and waiting.

And after making all these solders, and having the ring actually fit, and the stone stay in its setting, I had a lot more confidence in my abilities, too! And I later learned that my ring would have been a whole lot easier to do if I had chosen a cab with even dimensions, instead of this irregularly cut one - but I always go for the asymmetric stuff!

Getting these decorative balls in the shank of the ring was a pain!

Back view of the ring, showing my blatant rookie mistake: the back of the ring had to be stamped "sterling" before the shank was soldered on, and I placed the stamp in such a position that the solder flowed right over the "ster" in "sterling". So I guess my ring is just "ling"?


This was a project we were shown to use up the excess wire left over from the bangle; I only had enough excess to make a small pinkie ring!

And this is my big masterpiece - I am so pleased with the way it turned out. I used my own dichroic glass cabs, and designed this pendant to hang from an Omega or from a hard collar, and with a lot of direction from the teacher, it all came together very nicely!

I also started a 2nd pendant, and reticulated the silver links for a bracelet, but I couldn't finish either before I had to leave. And it will be awhile before I can finish either of them, because silversmithing is expensive! I want to order all the tools and equipment (not to mention, silver) that I need to start doing it right away, but lack the necessary fundage.

But hopefully my pal MAK (aka Glenda the Good Witch) will perfect the spell she is working on for me, and I will soon have money growing on trees, or something like that.

A girl can hope, anyway....