Saturday, November 24, 2012

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.



Tuesday, July 24, 2012

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

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

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.


Tuesday, December 27, 2011

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.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Double Coil Weave

Double Coil Weave

Ever wanted to figure out how to connect a few wires together to bring them to another side in your project?  The double coil weave is a handy, pretty way to add texture to a couple of wires.  Great to use doubled over as a bail as well!


This tutorial will show you how to create the coil with step by step photos and tips on how to hold the wire.  Better yet, it's free!


Sunday, September 25, 2011

Wire Working Notes

Wire Working Notes



On my blog I have uploaded PDF files of my free wire working tutorials.  An important companion is the General Notes file which contains a lot of general wire working notes.

The Notes are also a companion guide to all of my tutorials, starting with a list of terminology I use in my articles and tutorials with definitions and reasoning behind my madness.