Ok, I think I got the hang of the herringbone weave. My main problem here is making decent loops. Since Eni's tutorial is based on loops upon which to build the herringbone with thinner wire, they always look loopsided and just plain ugly. However I saw now a tutorial by Nix where he built up the herringbone on the plain wire, not on the loops. The little basket weaves are much nicer an much more uniform. So I guess until I win the battle of loops, I'll do these on plain wire.
The first picture shows some plays with copper wire (one is coated, one is plain).
The second is a copper set with some interesting non-uniformly shaped red stones. Have no idea what these stones are, but they're darn cute.
Hm, I guess I'll know what color outfit I will wear tomorrow at work, huh?
Love the little wrapped bail of the pendant, I've done it from a Eni tutorial and whenever I have some spare wire, instead of cutting it off, I make a loop with it, quite nice.
Let's see if I'll say the same ("quite nice") in one year's time when looking back at this, shall we? *grins*
Another things I've realised today is that I was forcing myself to do stuff so I can add them to my Etsy shop. I was looking at each piece as a potential seller. And I was losing my creativity in the process. As soon as I was working tonight on these copper pieces, thinking of wearing them tomorrow at work, I started enjoying again making jewelry :)
One other thing I learned today: how to work with the chasing hammer and not mar the wire (or at least mar it with the minimum of marks). It was in the way I was holding the hammer, I need to have it perfectly parallel with the bench block, not at an angle. I only had to change the angle of my arm at about 20 degrees and voila, my first hand-made ear wires with flat side and no marks, yayy!
If you're curious what is the second chainmail weave I was talking about that can be downloaded for free (see the bottom of my previous post), here is the end result.
The first picture shows some plays with copper wire (one is coated, one is plain).
Played a bit more today with wire wrap. Tried my hands and two wrapping tutorials by Eni Oken, with relatively sad results (see on the left) and then decided to change gears a bit and make a coiled wrap pendant from a tutorial by Remy (below).
Not the best results either, but it was fun to make. Actually everything I made today was fun, but my fingers do hurt a lot from the wrapping :-D
Not much from me these days. Too much stress at work, people are leaving, I have too many things to do, to also deal with angry and frustrated boss...I come home from work and I'm sitting in front of the tv like brain dead, not in the mood to do anything creative anymore. This has to change soon, else I'm not gonna get ahead with my jewelry dream.
And my wire wrapping learning continues... this time with a wrapped briolette from a free tutorial by Eni Oken. You can find the tutorial, btw, here. And like I said, it's free! Funny me buying all - or at least 99% of Enis' tutes, and then working on a free one, lol! But this one at least didn't feel so intimidating! I think my skills are still so basic, that I'm afraid to tackle them!
Today is Sunday and I'm in a creative mood!
So tonight I made this pair of earrings. Not sure if the beads are tiger eye or just simple glass, but they are gorgeous. Wrapped them in sterling silver. Not very pleased with how I wrapped the loops on one earring, I might have to re-do it. In the meantime I'll just wear them and see how they feel.
Here are a couple more of the new glazes as promised! Above is a rectangle charm with the Aurora Borealis glaze in my blueberry pattern. Below is a rectangle pendant in my Art Nouveau pattern with the Blue Charcoal glaze.
In the upcoming week I should have a sneak peek of some gorgeous button charms I just pulled out of the kiln. My friend Allene of Allene's Beads dropped off a big bag of fun antique buttons for me to play with and I must say the results have been terrific!
I'm in earrings frenzy! They're relatively easy and fast to make and you can ask anyone who is a taurus -we all like instant gratification!! LOL!
The second pair is turquoise with sterling. To make the earrings I used the idea from one of Metallique's books. One earring shows the front and one the back. This pair will go to a friend on a jewelry forum, as thanks for a reading she gave me a few weeks back. Yes, I know, usually making jewelry and spiritual subjects just don't match well together...or do they? I guess they do, my blog is a RL example of it.
The last pair is all purple glass beads (very cute from one of my previous trips in Czech Republic) and little bone beads. Again, all wire is silver.
For the top pair I used for the first time my wig-jig to create the earwires. Not bad, still takes some practice to master the jig, but I'm getting there.
I just finished all of my glaze tests with a gigantic batch of new glaze shades. Overall I'm very happy with the majority of the results and they will be popping up on the website very soon!
I'm also introducing a couple of new shapes/sizes, including the most fun rectangle shaped pendants and charms and a charm size that is just a smidge larger than what I've offered in the past.