Little detour, big earrings...

I got distracted when I was halfway through making something or other (happens to me ALL the time), had a blinding flash and made these earrings. Found the handmade sterling, turquoise and copper bead earwires in my market office box which I had taken off another pair of earrings to lessen the price who knows how long ago. But they work perfectly here. Nice little pure copper dangles on the headpins... or maybe these would be called dangle pins.

This second photo is pretty close in colour to the Kingman turquoise:

I've finally found a good spot to rig up my ring mandrel. I'd had it C-clamped to my big plastic folding table, but was forever impaling myself getting up or sitting down, not to mention the mandrel was always breaking free of the clamp, nor did I really have room to wrap the wire as the clamp was at a forward angle along the front of the table instead of -- drum roll, please -- along the other edge of the table. Sigh... this has only taken me six months to figure out.

I guess I could actually move the mandrel forward, too. I'll see how it goes on the first ring. The grey mark on the paper sleeve has size 10 marked on it -- the size I mainly work around when making guy rings. For those who've never tried making rings, it's wire-wrapping around the ring itself that makes the ring smaller. You don't want to try to make a ring the exact size you need right off the bat. Make it a bit smaller than you need -- because if it ends up larger than you want, you can't make it smaller. Then use a hide mallet on the steel mandrel with the ring sizes on it to gently bash the ring down the mandrel to get the exact size you need.

While poking around looking for those Kingman rondelles, I found my copper clasps and pewter birds that I've been looking for all week in the first two places I looked just now. I guess that's the secret to finding lost things if retracing your steps doesn't work: look for something entirely different.

Okay -- now to make some rings, and then... clean up? Pack up? Go to bed early for once? 3:30 a.m. will come faster than fast. Eyes crossed it's a good market tomorrow!

Thanks for looking.