Thank you Customers

After having my shop website up from 2005 to 2013, I have decided to close the selling part of my jewellery making hobby down.  I am focusing more on the educational side of promoting the passion of jewellery making to future hobbyists.

Thank you to all past clients with whom I have had the pleasure of designing some amazing projects, it wouldn't have happen without you all.

I have added a few pages to this blog of my designs and favourite projects broken down by jewellery type categories viewable in the upper right hand corner of my home page.

My tutorials will be re-linked again shortly.

More on HABRAS Disks for Polishing Jewellery

Since writing my post umpteen years ago about my original 19 mm set of Hatho Hasbras Disks, I have picked up a few more tips for when using these delicious and important tool of polishing jewellery.

They are still to date my absolute favourite polishing tool in my workshop for the fine polishing requirements, especially when aiming for a mirror polish.

Fibular Pin Design Notes

Fibular Pin Designs

The term Fibular comes from the Latin term, fibulae, referring to brooches.  While the overall structure of a fibular pin is limitless to your imagination (just do an image search the term “Fibular Pin” in a search engine and see the thousands of different styles that come up!), every fibular pin has the same technical components: Hinge, Body, Spring and Pin.

 The body is the flat plate between the hinge and spring where, in beaded and wire worked pins, most of the decoration occurs.

The hinge, located at one end of the body section, will have some kind of cup, hook or other structure to tuck the pin end into to keep the pin secured shut.  This part can also be extremely fancy and beaded.  It is often hidden in a brooch design.

A Bit About Fitting Your Body

Not my typical technical jewellery post today (or year?) but I am also an avid knitter and wanted to collect these posts on how to find knitting patterns and modify them to best fit your body shape.  

Having these posts in 1 spot will help me pick better sweater patterns in the future!

Amy Herzog of http://www.amyherzogdesigns.com has put together these tutorials for us for free.  She sells each one for $2 for a single PDF and you can buy all 10 in pdf form for $10.

Fit to Flatter Installment 1: Introduction
Fit to Flatter Installment 2: Shapes (and how to flatter them)
Fit to Flatter Installment 3: Mindful Project Choice
Fit to Flatter Installment 4: Sweaters and You
Fit to Flatter Installment 5: Necklines
Fit to Flatter Installment 6: Sleeves
Fit to Flatter Installment 7: Sweater Length
Fit to Flatter Installment 8: Shaping
Fit to Flatter Installment 9: Implementation
Fit to Flatter Installment 10: Conclusions

Coiled Coil Bead

I cannot talk about the coiled coil bead (my own term)  without first mentioning I first saw this technique on the jewellery of Connie Fox from www.jatayu.com.  After thoroughly devouring the education section of her website, I found a free tutorial from Connie Fox on how to make her bangle style with the beautiful feature bead made entirely of wire.

The photo left is the bracelet straight from Connie Fox's "Elegant Twisted Bangle Bracelet" featured on the tutorial link page at Jewelry Making Daily by Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist.  The tutorial was originally split over two months so in two parts.

Part one features how to make the "coiled focal bead" opposite the fancy hook.  As it is on the Jewelry Making Daily website, it requires you to register first, which is free.  Part One Link here.

Creating a Bail for a Pendant

First and foremost, it is important to measure around the clasp of the chain you will use for your pendant to dictate the circumference required for your bail.  Before you start bail construction.  If you have a special clasp you want to slide in and out, then:

Bail Circumference
Measure around the clasp with a soft measuring tape the minimum length required to comfortably slide the clasp in and out and then that should give you the length of X-wrap to make before creating the loop.

X Wrap Wire Weave

X Wrap Wire Weave

Ever needed to hide an area in wire work, or just wanted to fill in a large gap with some interesting pattern?  Here is an easy way to do just that, the x-wrap (named by me for the X shape produced in the middle of the wires) is a variation on the figure 8 used in the double coil weave to produce a more open, lacy look.

The tutorial is free and contains close up photos to show exactly what is happening over 3 full pages.  It is a stunning weave that makes a beautiful bail.