Jewelry For Katrina
Holy smokes, that was close, and I can only hope I made it in on time, since I didn't hit send on the mail program until 12:02 by my computer's clock, but here's my submission for the International Jewelry Designers' Guild (IJDG) Jewelry for Katrina auction. (click the image to see a larger, clearer picture)
I wish I'd gotten it finished sooner, but writing the description and getting a decent photo took longer than I thought it would, and I had no end of trouble just getting the time to make the thing. It took me over 4 or 5 hours to make, because I used 22 guage half hard silver to attach everything but the pearls. 22 guage is too thick for the drill in the pearls, so I had to use 26 guage for those. Every freaking bit of this one of a kind necklace is wired by hand, AND I wanted it to be nice and supple, so there's a tiny 2 or 3mm soldered ring between each pearl and the smoky quartz, and that smoky quartz was *hard* to wire close to, because most of it is cut on the slant, not nice and straight. I can't tell you how many freaking pieces of wire I had to cut apart and rewrap; it had to be at least a foot. And I had to junk one piece of smoky quartz because the stone was too thin at the end of the hole (thanks to the slant) and I chipped it. :( It sucks too, because that particular piece was really pretty and clear. The quartz is really pretty and a gorgeous brown and cost me $4 a piece, when you get down to the fact that I had to shell out for a whole strand, only 4 pieces of which (3, when one broke) were clear enough to use. And the pendant piece has a great rainbow fracture* on one side, which I think is really neat, considering it's to benefit people who made it through a storm. There are 3 pieces of smoky quartz, 4 rose quartz tubes, 5 4mm cultured pearls, 8 2xAB light rose Swarovski bicones, 8 shiny sterling silver bali beads (daisies), at least 14" of 22 guage sterling silver wire, at least 12" of 26 guage sterling silver wire, and exactly 12" of beautiful sterling silver chain. The whole thing is a little over 20.5" long, with a 1.25" pendant drop, and frankly, I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out. I set a starting bid at $60, which, with labor and parts, is what it cost. (well, $62, but that would be nitpicky) ;)
* A rainbow fracture is a fracture inside the quartz which includes a vacuum, allowing a prismatic splitting of light which creates a small rainbow, rainbow ring, or pieces of rainbow to appear inside the crystal or across the face of the fracture when light hits it just right. If you click the image above, you can just see the small half circle of fracture visible near the bottom of the pendant stone, on the left side. When you look at that edge of the pendant straight on, it's actually a small round fracture that creates a very pretty rainbow ring.
Lemme know what you guys think. And get over to Jewelry for Katrina to bid on something. There's a wide range of prices over there and some neat stuff, and it benefits charities based in Baton Rouge, which is great, because the Red Cross is getting the lion's share of donations, and other charities in the area need help, too. I think I may make one another necklace or maybe a pendulum to auction on eBay and one more of something else to benefit an animal charity, Noah's Ark or the SPCA/Humane Society. I'm thinking a silk and seashell necklace with pearls and stone or glass. I'm still working on the design for that one.
Okay. Gotta go. My hands hurt from all that hideous wiring!
I wish I'd gotten it finished sooner, but writing the description and getting a decent photo took longer than I thought it would, and I had no end of trouble just getting the time to make the thing. It took me over 4 or 5 hours to make, because I used 22 guage half hard silver to attach everything but the pearls. 22 guage is too thick for the drill in the pearls, so I had to use 26 guage for those. Every freaking bit of this one of a kind necklace is wired by hand, AND I wanted it to be nice and supple, so there's a tiny 2 or 3mm soldered ring between each pearl and the smoky quartz, and that smoky quartz was *hard* to wire close to, because most of it is cut on the slant, not nice and straight. I can't tell you how many freaking pieces of wire I had to cut apart and rewrap; it had to be at least a foot. And I had to junk one piece of smoky quartz because the stone was too thin at the end of the hole (thanks to the slant) and I chipped it. :( It sucks too, because that particular piece was really pretty and clear. The quartz is really pretty and a gorgeous brown and cost me $4 a piece, when you get down to the fact that I had to shell out for a whole strand, only 4 pieces of which (3, when one broke) were clear enough to use. And the pendant piece has a great rainbow fracture* on one side, which I think is really neat, considering it's to benefit people who made it through a storm. There are 3 pieces of smoky quartz, 4 rose quartz tubes, 5 4mm cultured pearls, 8 2xAB light rose Swarovski bicones, 8 shiny sterling silver bali beads (daisies), at least 14" of 22 guage sterling silver wire, at least 12" of 26 guage sterling silver wire, and exactly 12" of beautiful sterling silver chain. The whole thing is a little over 20.5" long, with a 1.25" pendant drop, and frankly, I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out. I set a starting bid at $60, which, with labor and parts, is what it cost. (well, $62, but that would be nitpicky) ;)
* A rainbow fracture is a fracture inside the quartz which includes a vacuum, allowing a prismatic splitting of light which creates a small rainbow, rainbow ring, or pieces of rainbow to appear inside the crystal or across the face of the fracture when light hits it just right. If you click the image above, you can just see the small half circle of fracture visible near the bottom of the pendant stone, on the left side. When you look at that edge of the pendant straight on, it's actually a small round fracture that creates a very pretty rainbow ring.
Lemme know what you guys think. And get over to Jewelry for Katrina to bid on something. There's a wide range of prices over there and some neat stuff, and it benefits charities based in Baton Rouge, which is great, because the Red Cross is getting the lion's share of donations, and other charities in the area need help, too. I think I may make one another necklace or maybe a pendulum to auction on eBay and one more of something else to benefit an animal charity, Noah's Ark or the SPCA/Humane Society. I'm thinking a silk and seashell necklace with pearls and stone or glass. I'm still working on the design for that one.
Okay. Gotta go. My hands hurt from all that hideous wiring!
posted by Jenie at 12:03 AM
6 Comments:
I was just looking at this from the link on your home page before I checked into your blog and it's GORGEOUS! Wow! I love the brown and pink combo - those rose quartz tubes are the perfect accent. On the wire gauge thing - do you have a pearl reamer? I use mine all the time just for situations like this where the pearl holes are too small. And where oh where did you find those unusual smoky quartz shapes?
I know, huh?! :) I got them at the place I thought was closed that time. The one I emailed you about where I buy the nice clear quartz. I've got the same types of shapes in quartz. I make pendulums with them. I do not have a pearl reamer. I *badly* need one. Where did you get yours? (I was using a bead reamer, and that does not work.)
J
Oh gosh, I got it so long ago...hmmm...I'm thinking it was either at the Softflex website or the Wigjig website. It's got a foam-padded handle and comes with about 3-4 different tips of varying lengths and thicknesses and it works great on pearls. I recommend getting a few extra of the smaller tips as they tend to wear out rather quickly if you're reaming a LOT of pearls. Don't even ask me about the bracelets I did that required 160 freshwater pearls per bracelet wrapped on headpins. There's a reason I stopped after two bracelets - the insanity had to end.
thanks for the 411 on the reamers. :) i can not for the life of me imagine putting 160 of *anything* on headpins for a single piece of jewelry. the time it would take *alone* is cost-prohibitive. insanity? try psychosis. dementia. i can't think of anything worse. :)
Yeah...turns out that those who've accused me of having OCD MIGHT have a point...
LOL!
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