Sitting on the Shelf for Months

Unfinished. Experimental. Behold!

I made this bracelet about 4 months ago. I wouldn't feel right trying to sell this awkwardest of turtles to anyone, but I don't mind revealing it to the internet in picture form. (Speaking of turtles, my Beloit friends may recognize the tabletop as that of one of the tables in the Science Center!) With this piece, I've been working with the nice harmony between the green of the wire and the bronze of the chains and clasp.

So, I like the color combination, but the balance is all wrong. Either I need to disassemble this piece and use its parts for some other creation, or it needs some major renovation. I am just not sure how that will come about.

Suggestions welcome in comments!

Tapering (and Getting on My Soap Box About Good Photography)

Hello, fellow adventurers! Here's a new necklace -- copper with wooden beads. (Looks quite a lot like a previous bracelet I've done!)

While I was finishing up the chain, pulling it through the draw plate, I felt as though it would benefit from some tapering at the ends near the clasp.

Here's the necklace that I modeled it after.

A side note here on the photography. For anyone who is thinking about selling anything online -- even on eBay or craigslist -- make sure you get at least semi-decent pictures, because it makes a world of difference how your item is perceived. Yes, I got a bit lazy with my necklace, as you can see. And whoever shot the other jewelry (possibly their creator,  Jan Raven) is a superior photographer. But it goes to prove my point -- good photography makes things look very attractive. Bad photography.... Well, I apologize for not taking better photos before sending this piece off to its owner!

Back to my point: this was the first piece in which I used the draw place to achieve a long taper. I am mostly satisfied with the result, although when I first looked at it, I wished my draw plate had more holes that were less drastically different sizes from one another so I could make a more gradual taper.

On the other hand, looking at Jan's jewelry, I rather think she had the same process. Instead of a slowing decreasing diameter, there is an illusion of gradual tapering where in fact there is one diameter for the most of the length of the chain between the beads and the clasp.

I have learned enough about design to know that it is the illusion that matters, not the reality. So, I think I can declare my experiment a success, and move on to the next piece!

Matching Madness

This bracelet came about when I noticed that I had some beads that matched a an outfit that I planned on wearing for a wedding this summer.

First, here's a close-up of the copper chain (which, if I do say so myself, turned out great).

And here it is! I was so excited to make this bracelet -- just look at how well the greens and blues match! I only had 2 days to whip this one up, but it was worth the effort.

I can proudly say that this bracelet is well-balanced, which makes it feel nice on my wrist, and also just looks fabulous. I'm so glad for the spark of inspiration my outfit gave me!

Hoops and Loops

You know what makes things take forever? Procrastination and fear.

Making my circuit board necklace took the span of a many weeks. Weeks! It took me so long because there were two things that this piece was missing that I had trouble making, and was timid about trying. One was end caps for the VK chain. The other was a bail, a thing that would hook the pendant onto the necklace.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, I found two tutorials that helped me fill those gaps.

There's this one on the Katrina Lum Designs blog on end caps.
And this one on bails made with head pins,which is a small length of wire with a flat knob at the end to keep things from falling off.

As I was making my copper necklace for the circuit board pendant, I knew I wanted silver end caps to go with the silver in the bits of the circuit board, but I didn't really like the style of either of my purchased end caps. The end cap tutorial was awesome for the look I wanted, but after a failed attempt at making a pair, I was discouraged and it took me a while to get up the guts to try again.

You can see in this image below that it didn't come out perfect (there is a gap in the loops).

Then, when I saw that the circuit board pendant didn't come with a bail to attach it to my necklace, I thought "No bail? No problem."

But pride comes before the fall.

I thought maybe I could just put a silver ring through the hole, but the pendant is almost a centimeter thick. I tried to make my own bail with some 20 gauge wire that I ordered especially for the job, but I had no idea what I was doing, so nothing I made turned out very nice-looking. I was starting to get really irritated, so I gave up for a few weeks.

Then I finally got the bright idea to check out some online tutorials. (Why hadn't I tried that before??) I found one that was pretty easy, sticking a head pin through the hole, curving it up and around and making a little hook with itself behind the head. Presto!

After all that hemming and hawing, I eventually finished.

Maybe the time it took was part of the process. Maybe I needed time to recharge after each roadblock. I'm open to that idea. But I'm glad I wasn't stopped indefinitely. This necklace delights me so much! Thanks be to the infinite creative energy that keeps projects moving along -- even at a snail's pace!

Branching Out -- Nerd Style

As with many of my other stories, this one starts off with an object -- a piece of raw material from which inspiration grew.

Meet mother... board.

OK, it's not "mother board," per say, but a circuit board. It might not even be from a desktop computer, but you never know.

I saw this little number on clearance at my favorite hobby shop. Score! It's always exciting to try new stuff on the cheap.

Next, I took some time to think about what sort of chain it should be attached to.

I thought the copper wire would look pretty sharp with the green, but I wanted to use silver findings for the end caps and clasp to echo the silver-colored bits in the pendant.

You can see from the above picture that at first I had the hook clasp in the "middle" of two equal lengths of silver rings. I decided to change it so that the length could be adjusted by the wearer.

The result is a wonderfully, ostentatiously geeky necklace unlike anything I've yet made!

Read my next blog for some of the hoops I had to jump through to make useful hoops!! (The pendant didn't come with a way to attach it to a necklace! Ack!)

Learning Length

In making my second necklace (single knit, without a pendant), I had to overcome an error -- I had made the knitted section too short. As I have said, VK is a fairly forgiving technique, but there is a point past which you cannot add more material to the end of a length you have already made. 

So, I had reached that point of no return when I realized my mistake. What to do? It was too long to be a bracelet, and too short even for my skinny neck.

Thankfully, I had some beads on hand. The brown wooden beads coordinated fairly well with the bronze-colored copper wire. As you can see in the photos below, I simply strung a few beads on a single length of wire at the end of the knitted portion.

This is not the most symmetrical solution, but it serves its purpose. The asymmetry might in fact be a useful (and purposeful) design element in future pieces. Nonetheless, in the face of a piece that I have made too short, I think that this isn't a bad answer.

Further Creations, New Designs

It is my misfortune on this adventure not to have all the proper tools of visual record-keeping. Not only do I lack a fully-functioning digital camera, but I also am still learning how to photograph my work well. So we will all have to bear with some blurry pictures, I am sad to report. But that is part of the adventure! So, onward!

I am pleased to present to you my next four pieces (made in summer 2011). These pieces are not especially magnificent, but I was quite excited to have completed them. I was just starting to get the hang of things, and I even got to experiment with some new elements.

In this image there are four new creations, as well as my first bracelet (the green one). The silver one with the pendant is a necklace, and the others are bracelets made of copper.

Here is a close-up of the pendant. Those who know more about jewelry-making than I will see how clumsily I attached it to the necklace. I am still searching for better ways of doing this, as I intend to make more pieces with pendants. If you have ideas, feel free to suggest in comments.

The copper bracelet below is made with the double-knit technique. It's quite a different look than the single-knit used in my other works, and it cannot be made quite as small in diameter as single with wire of the same gauge.

I am rather proud of this next bracelet; not only did I craft very it quickly, but it also represents the introduction of beads into the loops. The winds were strong in my crafting sails that morning! The beads are wooden; the wire, copper.