Finally, something new and not earrings.

I haven't touched my wire working stuff for three months (and I was even silly enough to buy more beads in the meantime)... then last night, I was examining my stash just before I intended to go to bed and was seized by the urge to make a necklace. I wrapped three strands of 22 gauge wire around a 15" long 20 gauge backbone wire, and then I wove 4 mm peacock pearls on 26 gauge wire throughout the necklace. I still have to make a clasp, and overall the necklace looks a wee bit too much like wire simply looped around the backbone, but it was satisfying to make and I did figure out a few techniques.

The necklace was intended as a companion to a custom bracelet made by Kythryne of Wearable Sculpture, who is obviously much more talented and skilled than I am:












The inspiration for both pieces was the Queen of Air and Darkness from The Element of Fire by Martha Wells (NOT the character of the same name from Lauren K. Hamilton's books). I wanted lots of black and peacock pearls because I am in the mood for darker pieces, although I really don't know why I chose pearls to represent air and darkness.

All I made were a pair of earrings.

I brought all my tools, a ton of wire and a good selection of crystals and stones with me to Australia, and all I made were a pair of garnet and Swarovski clear AB faceted oval earrings, which are modelled after these Wearable Sculpture earrings:

















Oh well. In Tasmania (Cradle Mountain, to be exact), a little girl came up to me while I was wearing these earrings and asked me where I got them. She looked a bit stunned when I said that I made them (but she may have simply misunderstood what I was saying because I did have a completely different accent than what she's used to).

The little pearls go flying everywhere.

Some more earrings that I made last week:










I made the simple amber drop earrings to practice attaching beads with wrapped loops. The silver coin pearl earrings are accented with clear round faceted crystals (AB crystals looked weird); I'm still not happy with the accent beads but I can't think of anything else that would look better and could still be threaded on 22 gauge wire. The chunky amethyst earrings are accented with wee bits of fluorite - they are deliberately slightly mismatched because I think that it adds character. And also because I couldn't find any other streaky lavender fluorite bits on my strand.


I've been also trying to create earrings that contain garnets with pearls in orbit:








The problem is that I prefer to have pearls (or any bead, for that matter) threaded separately rather than strung together in a row, so this leads to too many wire loops and spacing problems. I'll take these apart and try again next week.

My first wire injury.

I was trying to get a piece of 22 gauge wire through an improperly drilled coin pearl and managed to jab it rather deeply into my thumb instead. (Note to self: use the chain nose pliers next time; they work much better for this sort of thing and don't cause nearly as much pain.)

Speaking of tools, I had to replace the tool set that I started out with because... well, they sucked ass big time. It was inordinately challenging to make small tiny loops, to fold down wire ends neatly and to cut wire cleanly. The tools were too small for my hands (and I have small hands to begin with) and started to hurt my hands after about 30 mins of use. And finally, the round nose pliers had a deep dent near the tip of one of the arms that was impossible to file out, so it was marking the wire everywhere.

Injuries and crappy tools aside, I have managed to make some earrings. These are organized in order of creation (left, earliest; right, most recent) so that you can see that I'm getting marginally better at wire bending. While watching TV one evening, I was playing around with wire and made the wire tangle and the pearl cluster (in between the amethysts and the silver coin pearls). I need to find something else for the silver coin pearl earrings, because they're too bland as they are. Anyways, all of these will be taken apart and re-made except for the pink ocean jasper earring on the far right (which was the first time that I was able to make a proper scrolly thingy):







In case you're wondering, I have made two pairs of earrings that I consider "finished" and won't be taking apart. I recently bought a strand of really striking fire agate ovals:














These are 14 mm ovals, so they're too small to make into pendants unless I combine two or three of them into one piece. But they're perfect for earrings:











I've put these on sterling silver ear wires and will be giving them to friends later today. Family and friends, take note: if you want something specific for your earrings, speak up now or I'll choose what you get. And yes, pretty much everyone is getting a pair of earrings because I can't possibly wear all the earrings that I intend to make.

Why I have acquired a crafty hobby.

Readers of my personal blog will know that I've recently become addicted to the shiny objects from Wearable Sculpture. Alas, Kythryne is no longer accepting commissions due to The Road Trip, and since there are some pieces that I'd like to have, I've decided to... make them myself. I've already taken the plunge and purchased stone and pearl beads, silver-plated wire and tools.














I've been playing around with the wire over the past few days and I seem to have some ability for it (you can see my first attempt to make a labradorite pendant at the top of the pic, in the middle portion, near the dark-bluish pearls). Because I can be so spatially inept at times, I was somewhat concerned that I would be totally incompetent at it and I'd have to resort to beading instead. Not that there's anything wrong with beading, mind you... it's just that beaded jewelry doesn't inspire me in the same way as wire jewelry.

I figure that I can start out making earrings like these ocean jasper earrings with my ocean jasper and fire agate ovals. I want to work my way up to making myself something like these peridot earrings, these garnet earrings and these intricate wire earrings but with pearls. (Because pearls make almost everything better.) As for bracelets, I intend to remake this pearl bracelet but with more twisty wire (and pearls, of course) and maybe a cuff bracelet containing the jade figurines from this bracelet, which are meant to represent the animals in the Chinese zodiac:

















I think that all of the above projects are possible with a lot of practice, patience and wire. However, I have two stupendously brash ambitions for a novice wire wrapper:

1. A pendant that contains the birthstones (or similarly coloured, more reasonably priced substitutes) of everyone in my family. Kind of like this one, but it will contain 7 stones in total: garnet (instead of ruby), amethyst, peridot, rainbow moonstone, iolite (instead of sapphire), citrine (instead of yellow topaz) and amber (to represent my cat).
2. A garnet and pearl necklace that is a cross between this very simple one and this gorgeously ornate one.

Hmm, these goals seem even more ridiculously insane now that I've actually written them out. But first, I'll start with some earrings...