'industrial' ring

first of all, may i wish everybody a very Happy 2013 and may this year bring all you hope and wish for, and then some...

i have not posted anything since april 2012, but that doesn t mean i haven t been keeping busy. during the summer months i was making beaded woven bracelets. my son, his girlfriend and many other friends were very supportive, if you get my drift.

when classes started again in september, i was able to make a few little silver things that were different from what i d been making before because they were smaller than i am used to making... i tend to go for rather big things, me being a big girl myself... (haha, that was me trying to be funny by the way).

aaaanyway, my main project was again another challenge... making a ring without soldering but only using rivets to keep it all together...what they call in the trade: 'cold connection'.

i was inspired to make this one based on a machine-made steel ring that one of my colleagues at my day job wears (he s all into industrial engineering) and it just fit the bill. i had to try and make that in silver!

but steel is so much stronger! so i had to make a few adjustments: 800/1000 silver instead of 925/1000, thicker plate and thick enough rivets... this way my hand-made ring will, hopefully, be strong enough to withstand the wear and tear of time...

so, this is not my original design, but a project to see whether i could work out how to make all the little parts into one whole. and i thank my teachers Mich Larivière and Joris Faes, as well as my colleague Peter, for their support and advice during the process.

 

kumihimo 組紐 (or Japanese traditional cord weaving)

phew, it not only seems like a long time since i last posted something, but it actually has been a long time... and meanwhile Easter has come and gone.

if you know me, you ll also know that i haven t been sitting still. well, i have been sitting down a lot, but my hands just can t stop moving, haha...

not too long ago, i discovered a new technique called kumihimo ('kumi' being the Japanese for 'to gather', or 'weave' and 'himo' being the word for 'cord'). i say 'new' technique but it is in fact a very old one... nearly 800 years old and indeed very familiar to me, because i had seen enough cords and braids in Japan, especially when one of my family members wore a 'kimono' (the Japanese traditional clothing) where the 'obijime', the cord that ties the 'obi' (the long silk sash or belt) together is in fact braided silk cord; kumihimo.

it must be that somewhere deep inside me there is this fascination for braiding or weaving. i used to have long hair that i liked to braid. i love knitting as well. and, i now realize, that many of the silver jewellery that i ve been making over the past years, also contains a lot of weaving and interlocking...

what first started as rediscovering macramé, another weaving, or rather, knotting technique using beads and cords to make some simple bracelets, i was looking up some information on the internet and came across kumihimo.

WOAH!

first i saw that there was this strange disc that enables one to make 'simple' weaves similar to ones produced on a 'maru-dai'.

by chance i was in a creative hobby shop looking for some cords and beads to make some more macramé bracelets and i found this:

YAY!

but not easy to start, so i looked it up some more...

and began practicing:

'yatsu kongoh' weave (eight threads) two colors

'yatsu kongoh' weave (eight threads) four colors

'yatsu kongoh' weave (eight threads)

'yatsu kongoh' weave (eight threads) two colors

'maru yotsu' weave (four threads) single color

'maru yotsu' weave (four threads) three colors

'maru yotsu' weave (four threads) three colors

'kaku yatsu' weave (eight threads) two colors

and then i remembered i still have my mom s sewing box, where i keep all her old embroidery threads as well as mine (did i mention that i used to do quite a lot of embroidery too when my son was little?).

so i bundled some threads and started experimenting with those and trying out other weaves...

'yatsu se' weave (eight bundles of two threads) four colors

set-up for 'maru genji' weave

'maru genji' weave (sixteen bundles of three threads) three colors

and then i discovered these three videos on YouTube:

part one: Edo Kumihimo I

part two: Edo Kumihimo II

part three: Edo Kumihimo III

they are in Japanese, but please don t let that discourage you and do take a look... it s such a beautiful craft and words are almost superfluous.

somehow, i feel like i have come home.

my snake necklace

just a short post in-between the laundry and baking a batch of cookies...

it s finished.

my necklace, you know, the one i almost botched because i had soldered a few rings together that weren t supposed to get stuck?

well, i almost ruined it again during filing:

see the dent?

so i had to think of something quick to cover up the little mistake (yes, that is allowed...) which was this:

that took about two hours to make...

and i still had to get it soldered onto the end fitting! plus i still had the actual clasp to make.

hmm, not quite right. but it worked out in the end.

i quite like it...

and just in case you re wondering: why 'snake'? it s only because i was born in the year of the snake, and i thought the necklace which is officially an 'inverted round' weave has a kind of 'snake-y' feel, but hey, that s just me...

next week there ll be no class cuz of mid-term break, but i was at the library yesterday and i found a beautiful book: A World of Earrings which has given me an idea for my next project.

but first, laundry...

(belated) Happy New Dragon Year!

uh-oh! is it february already?

Happy 2012! Happy Dragon Year! may your dreams and wishes come true, and should some things turn out to be hard or sad, that you will still be able to pick yourself up and find the strength to carry on...

oops, that sounded a bit depressing, that last bit. anyways, it s what i tell myself... no yin without yang, yet no yang without yin either.

sorry i ve not been able to post anything, but i have been struggling with the piece i m working on at the moment.

i haven t even been able to take photos of the darn thing, because i was either trying to get it soldered, or trying to piece it together again.

oh, did i actually mention what i m working on exactly?

it s a necklace, an 'inverted round' necklace like the bracelet i made last year... it was something i worked on in-between projects and finally i had enough length on it to start working on the locket and the finish.

but it s kinda working against me. after having made the end pieces and pickling the whole thing, i saw that a few rings had opened again, and while trying to solder those, the solder flowed thru to other rings, which ofcourse stuck those together, and then i nearly burnt the necklace trying to let the solder flow so i could loosen the rings... aaaaaargh!

it is a work of patience.

which i have...

sometimes...

soon, soon it will be finished and i ll be able to show you what it looks like.

on another note: my friend loved her bracelet with the little rose clasp, yay!

here s what it looks like

and here s a few variations on the 'rose' (that s me, get me started, and i often can t stop)

tadaaa!

multifunctional...

so, next post will be about that new necklace.

i hope.

sweet little rose

there you go... another month has passed, yet it seems like only yesterday that i last posted.

meanwhile, we are nearing the end of the year, and i ve been busy trying to get the last little things that need to get done, well... done, before we welcome 2012.

which also means Christmas presents.

handmade is always nice ofcourse. yet sometimes that isn t always possible.

however, this time, i had found a little project in the january 2012 issue of Beads & Beyond and i thought it would make a perfect gift for my long-time girlfriend, oh, we ve been friends since kindergarten..., and even though we don t see each other enough, she s always been there for me.

so she deserves this one:

i started off by punching out different sized circles out of 8mm silver sheet

which i then gave an organic feel by doming them

after giving them a sanding, pre-polish and texturizing, i then stacked them ready for soldering

here they are, soldered

and after pickling, it was easy to leave them in the polishing tumbler for a while, which actually gave them both a matte and a high-shine finish (depending on where those metal spheres could reach).

remember that 4 in 1 half Persian bracelet i made at the beginning of this schoolyear? well, that rose box-clasp (shop-bought, ready-made...) wasn t quite working, it tended to release at the most inopportune moments, and i didn t want to lose the bracelet... so i replaced it with this little number.

front

and back

still have to decide what i m going to make to show off this clasp for my girlfriend, but now that the hard work is done, i still have a few days to ponder.

oh dear, i hope she doesn t read this before... nah, she s probably busier than i am right now...

so, that s all folks! at least for 2011... in the meantime may i wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful and Happy New Year!

freeze frame

some time ago i made a square ring.

there s a long story behind that, which i m not going to divulge here...

well, actually, yes, i am.

why?

because i made that square ring as a challenge.

during the summer we visited a market where young, as yet 'unknown', entrepreneurs were selling their products/wares... and most were either jewellers or fashion designers, but one jeweller s work jumped out at me.

now, before i go on, you must know, at the school where i m following my goldsmithing course, we are encouraged to share ideas and techniques. and, come on, ever since the first man or woman decided to hang a wild animal tooth on a leather string around his/her neck as a talisman or just to show off, humankind has been making things to beautify, to mystify, to show off wealth... and when a new concept, or a new technique was discovered, everybody was free to elaborate and make something better or more beautiful or useful...

anyway, so this jeweller s work stood out. it was a square ring, and i was intrigued. i loved that it fit snugly and comfortably, and i asked him how he had done it.

me and my mouth.

i won t even write what his girlfriend said.

on my way home i was already thinking how i could make one. and the next day i did.

using my bench-vice, i pulled and folded the strip of silver, turned it, pulled it again into a 90° corner, soldered, sanded and polished the thing, and it worked.

so there.

but then i found me a square mandrel! YES!

perfect corners.

freeze frame

best of all is not the fact that i now know i can make a square ring.

best is that i know there are other people, like my classmates, who enjoy making new pieces and discovering new techniques, and who don t mind at all about sharing ideas.

like this one; you might think this ring has been hammered, but it hasn t. oh yes, i did start out by hammering, but the effect was almost unnoticeable, because the metal would tend to spread out more and if i had continued, the ring would have become wider and thinner, which wasn t the objective.

so my teacher showed me how to get that hammered effect, by using a very small round burr and a very tiny sanding wheel...

time to test that technique out on something else now, hmmmm.

message on a scroll... ?

i have finally found the courage to start using a bit of gold in my work. not much, mind you, and (unfortunately) not even new gold.

somewhere in the back of my jewellery box i still had a gold ring from way back when, but i never wore it, well not often enough. so why not? melt it i mean. make something new and wearable out of it, combine it with silver, give it a little something extra, like a ray of light on the moon (jeez, that just sounds corny, but i m gonna say it anyway, there s a crazy poet inside me too)

i also like the idea of something symbolic, little messages on the inside of a piece of jewellery, not to be seen by anyone but the owner who knows it s there.

i had seen something similar to this piece in a magazine some time ago, tried to figure out how it could ve been made and came up with this:

a ribbon of silver, rolled up, kept together with a golden band.

now, how many turns should i give this?

7, nice, but too thick

here s that old gold ring, melted and pulled

then made into half-round wire

hmmm, now to solder that together (which was loads easier than soldering silver, wow!)

mattified the silver ring

after a final polish and clean

this prototype has no message except for the one in my head... but there could ve been, yes?