Fab news...

The Gem Expo in July was a total hoot, met lots of new and returning customers and friends -- and the class I taught went really well, so much so I plan to offer two or three different classes at the November Gem Expo. Stay tuned for advance announcements on that front, and I'll give you a heads up once the classes are posted. This time, though, the classes will be capped at 5 to maybe 8 students, so don't delay in registering. If we know far enough in advance that there is sufficient demand additional classes can be scheduled.

In fact, think about giving the gift of learning to a friend as an early Christmas present. There are jewellery-making classes at the show for every skill level and interest. You'll definitely make new friends and jewellery buddies in the classes, as well.

My fab news is this summer I sold the smaller copper swirl citrine pendant and the wire-woven Sleeping Beauty turquoise nugget ring. Then yesterday I sold the larger swirl citrine pendant.

Aaaand... three weeks ago I sold the double-sided dragon-skin/crackle agate Backside of the Moon pendant.

People who know me know that I am a big fan of more is more, which means my market tables are usually crammed with stuff. Well... the past few weeks I've been experimenting with putting on the table just one or a few items in a style instead of the five, ten, dozen or more that I have... and it seems to be working. There is breathing space now between each item and sales seem to have picked up. There might be a little of the "uh, oh -- there's only one left, I'd better buy it now" scarcity strategy going on, too... maybe.

We also got new lighting in the market building a few weeks ago thanks to a grant. Makes a HUGE difference, so much so that I don't have to put up spotlights all over my table. Instead of walking from sunlight into a dim and depressing building, it's like walking from sunlight into sunlight. It's quite spectacular, actually, and all the jewellery across the table looks ten times better instead of the spotlit puddles I had before.

This summer I acquired some really great crystals and unusually-shaped tumbled and raw semi-precious stones. I'll be posting pictures when I get them made up into pendants. Meanwhile, you can always contact me here or by email for special orders, and you can find me at the Woodstock Farmers Market every Saturday morning, 7:00 a.m. to 12:00.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Finally completed: Backside of the Moon Wire-Woven Pendant...

Took a bit longer than I'd expected, but Saturday morning at the market I finished the pendant. I mentioned in the last post about moving that little bit of wire at the top of the pendant to wrap around the single wire coming out of the bead. I think it really cleaned up the piece.

What it looked like before, with too many waves and curls. Even with pendants, I still adhere to the old magical "3" used in design:

What it looks like now:

Note also that I tucked that single hammered curl on the right in much tighter: it's there, but not.

And the "front" side before, where you can see that weak (to my eye) wave effect pretty much emphasising the single bare wire coming up from the bead:

And after:

I'd considered making a woven bail looping into the top of the pendant, but it looked too busy, so I did end up using jump rings after all. I thought using three would spread any wear along those fine weaving wires. Also, using three jump rings echoes the three woven base wires of the pendant top, as well as the three curved and hammered wire ends.

I also discovered the hard way that you don't want to be hammering curls like that if there's any weaving in the way. About 1/4" of the weaving ended up breaking into tiny pieces and falling away.

I decided also that a plain black adjustable leather cord would work best, rather than a wider leather lace or even a copper chain. I for one get so caught up in the fine details while working that I lose sight of how the pendant will read at any distance.

This is naturally oxidising, by the way. If you are interested in buying this piece and want it patinaed, let me know. This pendant is for sale: $50 plus shipping & handling. Please contact me by email if you're interested.

You can see it in person at the Woodstock Farmers Market every Saturday morning from about 5:00 a.m. (when I get there) until noon -- the market officially opens at 7:00 if you're not an early bird. I'll (maybe) have this and many similar pendants for sale at The Gem Expo in Toronto at the Hyatt Regency on King Street Friday July 15th to Sunday July 17th.

Thanks for stopping by -- and see you at The Gem Expo!!! It's a great show with lots of classes, beads, finished jewellery and an immense amount of knowledge on offer.

Backside of the Moon Copper Wire-Woven Pendant...

...finally got back to it on Sunday while sitting at the Nostalgia Show & Sale and then finished it today. This is the pendant I started well before Christmas -- you can see above on the masthead how far I got. Then the proverbial shite hit the fan and life became a monstrous blur for several months. One foot in front of the other, and don't look down. Then six or eight weeks ago or so I got absolutely deluged with typing which only let up on Friday.

Last week I'd set up a table outside to sort items for the Nostalgia Show and decided to leave it up all summer. Truth is, I'm too lazy to take it down and heave it back into the house. Today I cleared off accrued tree spit and whatnot and finished that pendant... almost. It looks okay in my hand, but as soon as I edited the photos I saw it wasn't reading, and figured out what needs to be fixed. I'll do that tomorrow. Let it percolate overnight in case I see something else needs tweaking. Of course I'd completely forgotten what I'd planned for the bail... and now there isn't one. That's something else I have to sort out. I think jump rings might wear away at the fine weaving wires, but I like the simplicity of the pendant as it is now. I may just string it on soft leather lace as is.

My outdoor studio, complete with deer flies, the big black ones with festively coloured eyes that you don't feel landing, only when they bite. For some reason they were biting me through my clothes, not my skin, which I found very strange.

Last December's photo, and Sunday's progress:

On Sunday, I'd remembered that I wanted to do something like that double curl at the bottom of the pendant, but the rest? Boh. So I started weaving and entwining... What I was definitely mindful of was producing a fully reversible pendant (this being the nominal front).

The back...

NO POINTLESS TWIDDLES this time, please and thank you! I did get quite ruthless in the end and hacked away.

Now to work:

Worked on hammering those lovely and elegant curvy curves that I admire so much online. This is when an anvil comes in handy, versus a plain bench block.

These are the two sides finished. This was supposed to be the back; yet again it looks better than the front. Not sure about that single curl in the lower right area... might disappear that tomorrow, too, or at least curve it into that woven bit more tightly. It's a structural piece that locks the two sets of weaving together. .

A little overexposed, but this photo of the front shows off the bead quite nicely. See that kind of "wave" dipping across the top of the bead? That's going to be gone tomorrow. It will wrap around and hide the wire coming out of the bead and I hope make the overall design stronger.

I'll post the finished pendant tomorrow. Might even sort out a bail. Thanks for stopping by!

Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Copper Wire-Woven Ring... A Sorta Kinda Tutorial...

I've been making plain little beaded wire-wrapped rings for kids for the past couple of weeks now, but I'm starting to get a little bored, and last night decided to try my hand at a wire-woven ring.

My usual technique to do anything is to start weaving a few wires together and see where they lead me. If nothing else, this gives me any number of specific questions to find the answers for, at which point I hit the books and Internet. There are many wire-woven ring patterns available (all the books I own have at least one ring tutorial in them) and there are copious YouTube tuts both free and for pay.

For a first effort this came out rather nicely, I think. The most interesting thing for me is how that tiny Sleeping Beauty nugget pops and holds its own -- looking twice its real size -- not overpowered in the slightest by all the weaving around it.

I wove a couple of inches in the middle of the wire I'd cut (3 base wires 20 gauge dead soft copper 7-8 inches in length, weaving wire 28 gauge). I picked the particular pattern just because I like it. It might be the Aztec weave. I checked for length on the mandrel, wove a bit more, then slid the bead on one of the wires.

Then I continued weaving 2 and 3 wires at either end, at the same time wrapping and overlapping the woven lengths around the turquoise bead just like making a rosette ring. I didn't want this to get too big and bulky, so once the turquoise was firmly ensconced, I STOPPED. No extra twiddles or anything. I trimmed and tucked all the ends underneath.

And there you have it, a copper wire-woven ring, size 6, Sleeping Beauty turquoise nugget.

You can see how red my middle finger was getting from the wire; my right hand was worse. Time to start taping my fingers to protect them. Or build up some honkin' calluses! (The black spots are from ancient hammer blows, maybe three or four years old.)

I've put the offer on Facebook here, first person who contacts me gets it (determined by time stamp) or it will be available at the market tomorrow. Guess I should put the price, eh? $30, plus shipping.

Thanks for stopping by!

Copper Heart for Valentine's Day...

I wanted to wire-weave a heart pendant for Valentine's Day, even though it's very time-consuming. It's sure fun to play with.

My big thing at the moment is learning to turn and/or weave around sharp corners without leaving huge lopsided gaps, and I used a design by Nicole Hanna as my jumping off point for the bottom. (The messy top is all mine, though and the bail did NOT work out as envisioned.)

I deliberately left that bloopy loop down at the bottom thinking I'd add a dangle.

Originally that whole circle bit was off-centre and to the right. It looked HORRIBLE! I tend never to plan things. My modus operandi is to weave a length in some pattern and then figure out what to do with it. Sometimes it works out; more often than not it doesn't.

It was when I was manipulating the woven length of wire into shape I realised I'd used too light of a gauge -- 20 instead of 18 -- and the pendant is far too open and wobbly despite its relatively small size: 1-1/4" wide and 1-3/4" tall, including the bail.

I left it for a day and went online and looked at more hearts, and decided to try and rescue it with a bead, found several lighter colours that worked, but being for Valentine's Day, figured go with garnet. Here you can see the way I've trapped the garnet. I also at this point, moved the circle-y bit to the centre of the pendant; one of my fave things about wire-weaving in general is how forgiving it is to move and manipulate. The curls trapping the garnet turned out to be surprisingly secure, but I did weave it in place with a bit of wire just to be sure it didn't pop off.

Here's a slightly different angle showing the curled "prongs". The bead should've been seated further down into the circlet, but I'd already stitched those into place, and there was no more wiggle room.

I'll have this and other pendants and great gifts available for sale at the Woodstock Farmers Market every Saturday, 7:00 a.m. to noon, or email me for availability and shipping/handling cost. You can also contact me via my Facebook page.

Thanks for looking!

Rescuing a Crap Wrap...

The other day, I made a bunch of swirl wire-woven pendants and a couple of them didn't work out. This one...

...I decided was worth rescuing. I wasn't sure exactly what I would do with it, but as I was twisting the bead off thought, hey, it looks okay at an angle: showing just a little bit more of the wire weaving balances everything quite nicely.

Plus, by flipping the bead back to front, the colour blobs now echo and tie together the lines and shapes of the wire weaving, strengthening the overall design in a way that the random blob pattern on the other side didn't.

For all you wire-weavers out there, I recently joined two Facebook groups, and they're both a great read, with lots of good info and participants from all over the world. I'm finally "meeting" the people whose work I've been obsessively pinning for a few years now or even subscribing to on Craftsy. Do check 'em out and join:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wirewraptipsandtutorials/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wiremetalstone/

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Gem Expo put to bed...

An awful cold hit me like a freight train late Monday afternoon -- but Thursday the 19th found me bombing down the highway on a sunny day: well, first a pit stop at Peridot Hair Salon in Paris to get my hair done -- the day before I'd hacked off almost 18 inches of hair. This is the shortest it's been in almost 20 years. Now for four days of glorious freedom from typing. Wheeee!

I met Ruth at the St. Lawrence Market where we stocked up on bags of chocolate-coated ginger (really great brain food) and tanked up on hot sweet and sour soup. It seemed to help my cold, at any rate. We walked around until it was time to head over to the Hyatt Regency to set up at 8:00.

Our tables were smack dab in the centre of the ballroom, rather than the usual spot off in a corner. Location, location, location, right? Last March, I can't tell you the number of people who arrived at my table in the corner farthest from the doors only to tell me that between the doors and my table they'd spent all their money.

What with this head cold and cough (which got worse and worse through the weekend), I was pretty brain dead, but Ruth and I got the van unloaded and things more or less set up around 10:30 p.m. This was the sight that greeted me when I arrived at 8:00 a.m. Friday morning. Only three and a half hours 'til showtime. Surely we'd got more done last night????

But I methodically persevered, fueled by a second medium Tim's latte (by Saturday, I'd graduated to large lattes, anything to cut through the brain fog), and by 11:30 the November 2015 Gem Expo was open for business:

One of my very first customers at The Gem Expo two and a half years ago, Kate Laidlaw, came to visit Friday afternoon and brought one of her necklaces that she'd made with my beads.

She does such beautifully clean but bold work. You've got to check her out.

Saturday night, Ruth took five of us out to the Thai Princess for a really nice meal. I was grateful that whatever this horrible nastiness I had was, it hadn't affected my appetite. I love Thai food, and it was so nice to sit down and share plate after plate of wonderful food with new and old friends.

Meanwhile, I finished wire-weaving a turquoise pendant. I'm not too sure about it, but here it is.

I restrung a bracelet I'd given to Ruth, which needed shortening. She added some turquoise and deleted one of the skulls. Here 'tis, with her asymmetric tweaks:

I managed to drop a string of lodalite, which is a gorgeous greenish phantom quartz, and broke one of the beads, so I decided to put some with the third of my bird necklace designs. Lodalite, hand-cut Afghanistan turquoise heishi and shell birds:

Friday had dragged... but then all of a sudden the show was over.  Took a lot less time to pack up than to set up.Yes, the contents of all those bins and bags had been on two 6-foot tables and two 2x6 foot grids only one hour and 45 minutes before. I think the packing this time was a record. But then we had to find a functioning elevator...

Ruth convinced me to accompany her to the Elephant & Castle for a good meal before attempting the drive back to Woodstock. Good plan. Good food. Actually, really good food -- it cut through the brain fog and I could even taste their version of French onion soup, made with beer. Yum! Just wish I could've had a beer.

And that was it. A fast drive home. I pulled into my driveway around midnight -- and promptly spent the following week in bed. An enormous thank you to Ruth's parents for hosting me this weekend and putting up with my infernal coughing. Her mom sent me downtown every morning with jars of steeped raw ginger tea, to which I am now addicted.

See you all in March 2016!

2 Quartz Pendants from Arkansas...

My pal Nancy, with whom I share the One of a Kind Antique Mall booth, lived in Tupelo, Mississippi, for a couple of years and would go digging for quartz crystals in red mud pits and hills in Arkansas -- and when the owners advise you to wear OLD boots, they mean it! I have to find the name of the place.

I've been meaning to wrap them for a while. They resurfaced in my own personal pit yesterday so I gave it a go (unfortunately, again with the pointless twiddles). I'm experimenting with different weave patterns and wire gauges.

Quartz Pendant 1 front and back:

Quartz Pendant 2 front & back:

Both are available for sale today at the Woodstock Farmers Market. I'll be there by 5:00 a.m. if anyone is up and interested in taking a look. Thanks for stopping by!

Nnnnnnot going well...

I bought these three random pewter "worry stones/beads" to wrap as pendants to see how it goes when there are no drilled holes. After a whole morning at the market? Not. Well. At. All.

Here is the first one I did. After that, I started over, and started over, and started over... until the morning was over. On the one hand I feel like I wasted a lot of wire -- too much overthinking was/is my problem -- but now I have all these inch to inch-and-a-half woven bits I can rescue and trim and stitch into other pendants.

I forgot to get the name of the company that makes these -- out in Nova Scotia, I think. I will remember for next Saturday.

Hope you're having better results! Thanks for stopping by.

Two More Pendants...

Another mystery stone leaf pendant and what I think is lepidolite. Sure is pretty, though. Like storm clouds on the one side. Getting to the point where there is no discernible back or front to the pendants, so BOGO in other words. I'm finding also that starting out with too much wire is also not a good thing -- I tend not to stop until the wire is finished. I think the lepidolite pendant got to be a little too much.

You can see in the photos that my fingers are getting rougher and rougher. Certainly they're very sore, and it's getting more difficult to compress the wires. In several of the videos I watched yesterday people were wrapping their fingers with fabric bandaging.

For now, I'm back to Midsomer Murders and another pendant. Hope you have a great evening. Thanks for stopping by.

Copper Woven Leaf Pendant...

I spent most of today watching Russian wire-weaving tutorials -- in Russian, no less (and no, I absolutely do not speak Russian!) but the guy draws little pictures so you can clearly see the weave patterns -- on YouTube. I cannot believe the magical work that is being done there. I learned a ton today and got really inspired: here is my new leaf pendant with copper wire weaving. Nope, no idea what this stone is. It's green, sometimes see-through, definitely dyed... and very pretty.

If you'd like to watch some great instructional videos from Russia and see lots of inspirational pictures, they're pretty much all towards the top of my Pinterest board here. These are videos I still have to watch.

Yet again the back ended up becoming the good side. And I ran out of wire, even though I cut it extra long. Gaaaaah.

Front:

Back:

Side view:

You can come and see this and any new pendants (and earrings) I get done in the next two days at the Woodstock Farmers Market at the Fairgrounds on Nellis Street this and most Saturday mornings, 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. Or you can email me for availability/cost/shipping rates or to wrap a special stone just for you or perhaps someone on your Christmas gift list.

Don't forget, The Gem Expo is coming up fast: just three weeks away. See you in Toronto!

Okay, now to go back and make another one. Thanks for looking!