January meme: Jan 22

[cahn]

thistleingrey asked about something I do in my down time (besides reading/writing).

Well, this month, planning a 4-year-old birthday party (party favors ARGH) and writing these meme posts are sucking up most of my down time :P

But I know that's not what you meant :) And in fact this was the post where I spent the least amount of time deciding what to write about: I expend a great deal more thought and desire and time and money than I probably should on SHINY THINGS (including when I should be thinking about this darned party, ugh). I never talk about this here, and rarely even in RL, because a) I'm not sure anyone who knows me is that interested, b) it just occurred to me that I might be hesitant to talk about it because it's such a sterotypically-girly sort of thing, which... is not a good reason, I should work on that, and c) really the whole point of shiny things is to look at them, and I suck at posting pictures. [Apropos of which, I think I've fixed the picture/post formatting, but if I haven't let me know!]

"Shiny things" started as, and still predominantly means, faceted precious gemstones, both synthetic and natural -- I've always loved gemstones, ever since I was a kid hoarding small polished rocks from the museum store.

I go back and forth between preferring natural or synthetic gemstones, but I usually come back to synthetic, because they're cheap, so I can actually afford to buy them in the colors I want rather than settle for an inferior color or just ogle at their online pictures :) They are beautiful when cut properly -- chemically they are, of course, the same as their natural counterparts, only more perfect (except for some that are different on purpose, such as yttrium aluminum garnet, or that have no natural counterpart, such as cubic zirconia, which I adore because you can get it in lots of awesome colors). The reason that you can usually tell synthetics from naturals in your typical mall jewelry store is that they tend to be cut and polished extremely badly. I have now found good sources for well-cut synthetic gemstones in good choices for color. (I keep harping on color because -- well, you know how diamonds have the four C's? With colored stones, it's one C. Color. The others are important, but color is king.) Most of them are actually quite cheap, and I enjoy them a lot.

Here is my "synthetic-color-shape-sample" bracelet that I've been collecting stones for, hm, mostly about a year, although there are a couple of stones that date back much farther than that -- and which I finally up and made at the end of last year, and which I love entirely too much, to give you a sense of the variety of colors and shapes that are available for synthetics and, uh, that I like. These are all synthetic gemstones; the settings were all pre-cast with connector parts, and I basically just mooshed them all together with pliers, no thinking involved (although I do have some tips if anyone ever tries doing something like that). I'm a bit dubious about the long-term stability of the connector bits -- they're only held on by friction, and they will shear off given enough torque -- but I'm trying to be careful with it.

(Also, it is well known to be difficult to photograph gemstones. The blue and yellow stones are not as deeply colored as the picture implies, and the green and purple ones are prettier :) )





In grad school, a good friend of mine, KB, found out about the local lapidary society and we both joined. I learned how to polish cabochons (rounded faces, not faceted -- e.g. here). We also then had to do something with all these cabochons we were making (well, mostly him, as he was much faster and better at cabochon-polishing than I was), so we learned how to wire wrap ( a little more on that later). I never learned how to facet gemstones, which I regret to this day, although I suspect I might have found it too exacting and focused work for my taste. Still, it would have been fun to try it out.

When I moved here for my job, I found out that the local community college had jewelry classes, and so I took a bunch -- mostly so I could figure out how to set gemstones. I've now taken art glass (which was totally fun, glass is very shiny), wire wrapping (which was half stuff I already knew, but I got better at it -- see Figure 2 -- wire wrapping is the jewelry-making I consider myself best at, although I got bored with it and don't do it much anymore), enameling (which I think would be more interesting to someone coming at it from an art standpoint, which I was not), wax casting (which I found frustrating, never having been into sculpting and carving), precious metal clay (which is actually really cool -- clay that fires to be fine silver! -- but which I'm terrible at working in the way I want), fabrication (sawing, soldering, hammering, and in general hitting metal with tools, which I'm terrible at and which I really like and have taken several times -- see Figure 3). Then I had the kid and I stopped taking classes.

Here's a glass cabochon I made in art glass class (basically, melting a piece of clear glass on top of the dichroic glass; there was very little actual work required of me besides cutting the glass to size, as the teacher did the kiln work) and which I wire wrapped in argentium silver (a silver alloy that tarnishes less quickly than the usual nickel alloy).




I made this ring in fabrication class about when I got pregnant with E, as a class project, from pieces of sheet metal sawed into shapes and soldered onto the ring shank (which itself was a piece of sheet metal bent into shape). You can see I never quite finished setting the cabochon in the ring. It is a super ugly ring and I loved making it. One day I will actually set that darn cabochon and wear it around.




Lately I have gotten interested in chain maille. I did a little of this before E was born and decided it was rather more boring than fabrication. But fabrication takes focused attention and larger chunks of time than I'm willing to give it right now, and chain maille is perfect for doing a bit while my attention wanders elsewhere as well as for doing about five minutes of it, then having to wander off and do something else. Also, it's not completely devoid of interesting design work when actually making a finished piece. (I haven't gotten proficient enough or interested enough that I can make up my own weaves, and probably won't.)

Here's the bracelet I made for my sister for Christmas (or, really, Epiphany, since I made it while we were at her place after New Year's), which I'm extremely pleased about. When I showed my mom the first draft, which was in a larger-diameter wire gauge and included only the Byzantine-weave part and the stones, she suggested a smaller diameter wire, and something else she said made me think of using the larger rings, which I think worked out really well. I'm making a similar one, with a less dense weave, for my mom for her birthday :)

Comments

[janewilliams20]

Ooh, shiny!
So hitting bits of metal with tools, and making chain mail, is sterotypically-girly, is it? I hadn't realised that :)
Love the colours in that glass cabochon.

[cahn]

Heeeee! Yeah, fabrication is pretty manly, actually, if we're going to be assigning gender stereotypes. (And my husband was really pleased about how I'd come home from fabrication class and start quizzing him about various tools in his arsenal.) But being obsessed with gemstones... which is to be fair how this whole thing got started... kinda is stereotypically girly? :) (Interestingly, almost all the faceters I know of are guys.)

I'm glad you like the glass cabochon colors; I do too!

[skygiants]

These are really pretty!

[cahn]

Thank you! :)

[thistleingrey]

Thanks! And these are lovely, especially the bracelet links. (It figures that I've always found visually appealing the jewelry subgenre that's essentially the twining that people do with thread, except in metal--even before I taught myself to crochet. During my three years of SCA, I helped people spin copper wire for links and neeeeearly took up making chain mail, but crochet won (despite being out of period) because its startup costs were much lower.)

[cahn]

Thank you for giving me the chance to ramble on and on about it! :)

Yes, I haven't done that much working with thread/yarn, but I've done a little, enough to note the similar feel of various wireworking genres -- I've also done a little weaving with wire, which I didn't talk about. But yeah, although less shiny, fiber has lower startup cost :P :) (Although I just ordered some cheap anodized aluminum rings that I have high hopes for!)

[ollipop]

Pretty pretty pretty! I don't know a lot of these terms, but if it's shiny, I'm interested. I feel like I should have something smart to ask about the production but I don't. So just keep talking, please?

I'd be interested to know what E thinks of the jewelry... My kiddo took a brief great interest in both my jewelry and my knitted stuff (the only way in which I'm artsy-craftsy) but he has since wandered off, which is a mixed blessing. I love his interest. I'm not sure about him having his hands on my stuff. :)

[cahn]

Yay, shiny = interesting! I am happy to talk your ear off about any aspects of shiny things. Any particular piece or type you want to know more about? :)

E is, to my bemusement and D's not-very-secret relief, not particularly hung up on shiny things. She likes to make bead bracelets and such, but doesn't have the acquisitive nature I do in relation to them, and she thinks my gemstones are interesting but forgets that she's interested in them as soon as she's not in the room with them anymore. She does want to do the chain maille when she sees me doing it -- I've ordered some colorful anodized aluminum rings and will see if she can handle those, which I think she'll really like if she's got the strength/dexterity to do handle the pliers (which I'm not sure she does yet).

[scaramouche]

Don't really have anything useful to say, actually - just wanted to comment that this was a really interesting read, and SHINY.

[cahn]

Oh, hey, thanks! I am really pleased to see that people enjoy my talking about shiny things; maybe I'll post about it more :)