Dabbling

Good morning all!  I disappeared there for a bit.  I've been having some health problems since I quit smoking before Christmas (thought quitting smoking was meant to be good for you!!) and it's completely sapped my motivation to blog, craft, or really do anything...  I have managed to conquer it on occasion though, so thought I'd show you what I've been up to.

Work has continued on my craft studio.  I put up some shelves.  They had been in my old craft room and I felt like they needed painting.  I painted them the same colour as my floor, and then, just for the hell of it, stencilled the bottoms!  I LOVE them!  No, the stencilling isn't very obvious, unless you're sitting down or short.  I am short so it's a win for me.  Since this photo, I have done more.  I'll do a post about this soon.

Silversmithing class continues and I have been playing with some domed circles in copper, silver and a teeny tiny one in gold from my mum's wedding ring.  

This comes out now and again.  A pretty piece of fabric, some teal and pink threads, doing what I fancy.  I haven't worked on it much recently due to the ill health and have instead been either crocheting (post coming soon!) or working on a small cross stitch I started.

I'm starting to feel slightly better, so I'm hoping to be back properly soon!  

Copper and silver necklace

There'll be no review of 2018 or goals for 2019 from me.  I did so little craft last year, I can barely believe it.  I would like to craft more this year, but I'm not putting any pressure on myself, so I'll make what I make and post when I post!

I finished this necklace before Christmas.  I've shown you peeks of me making it.  In this post from March last year, I showed you a bit of the technique!  Making soldered chain IS a time-consuming process, but I'm also quite slow and made various other things at the same time!

It's made from copper and sterling silver.  I made large jump rings, soldered them and cleaned them up, then rolled them through the rolling mill to flatten them.  They were then hammered to add texture.  I then made what felt like about a gazillion small jump rings and soldered it all together.  I then spent a LONG time filing and sanding each and every link!

It is finished with a hand made and hammered toggle clasp.  I love it.  I love mixed metal jewellery and I love rings like this.  I'm not sure I'd embark on making another chain from scratch though!

Silver and gold necklace

I managed to start and finish a piece of silver jewellery in just a couple of weeks rather than a few months or a year or more!  OK, so I started it back in July before the summer break, but technically it was only a few weeks!  

I thought I had some process photos of this necklace, but I can't find them so maybe I don't.  I used argentium, which I used before making my brother's ring, and again I used pieces of my mum's wedding ring.

I pierced out the five pieces of argentium in varying sizes and cleaned them up.  I punched the circles from mum's wedding ring using the hydrolic press and my circle punch kit.  The original idea was to completely inlay them into the silver batons, as I did with my brother's ring.  After fusing the gold to the argentium, I loved the way they protruded, so decided not to roll them in.

I bought some thin tube and the omega chain, then cut the tube to fit the backs of the batons.  I soldered them in place before cleaning everything up.  I then cut more pieces of tube to act as spacers.

You can see them on the photo above.  Then it was just a case of threading everything on to the chain and resoldering the clasp.  Job done!  This is a necklace I will treasure.

Silversmithing - end of term

Silversmithing ended for the summer last week.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to the last class as I fell down the stairs at work and badly sprained my ankle!  At the time, I actually thought it was broken, luckily, it wasn't, but it did mean I couldn't walk or drive.

There were three pieces I wanted to finish before summer.  The chain necklace I've been making for months which just needs to be cleaned up, I'm more than half way across.  This I could actually do at home, then just pickle and barrel polish it in September.  Secondly, the spinner ring which is a replacement for the one that didn't spin which was a replacement for the one that became too big!  And finally, a silver pendent using gold from my mum's wedding ring.

The pan-ultimate lesson brought some disasters.  See that raggedy bit towards the top left?  I melted it.  I heated it too much whilst annealing.  I had to file the whole things down.  I filed for about 90 minutes.  Ouch.

I took this picture about halfway through the filing!  You may notice that the join also split.  Oh dear, not going well!!

This is a new piece.  Sorry for the sideway-ness of the photos.  Apparently you can't rotate in Photobucket without it making a mess of the photo.  The bars are argentium, which I used in my brother's ring.  This makes it easier to attached the tiny gold circles which are cut from mum's wedding ring.  I used a hydrolic press with a set of circle cutters to cut such precise circles.  The idea was to attach them, then run them through the rolling mill to make an inlay, but I decided I liked them standing proud.  I just need to add tube to the back and clean them up and this will be ready.  Sadly, it will have to wait til September now, thanks to the fact I'm so clumsy!

A memory ring

I actually finished this ring a few weeks ago, but I have been struck with a mystery virus which means I've mainly been lying on the sofa, watching TV and moaning.

When we lost mum, I kept hold of her wedding ring.  My dad is the most unsentimental person in the world and treasures his memories of mum rather than her possessions.  I am not over sentimental, but this is her wedding ring.  However, I don't much like yellow gold, it's far too big for me and it's not something I would wear.  After a quick discussion with my brother, we decided I'd make a piece of jewellery for each of us using some of mum's ring.

My brother wanted a skinny ring.  After seeing a demo by my silversmithing tutor a couple of months ago on how to inlay gold into silver, I knew what I was going to do.  The wire in the picture above is argentium.  It is basically sterling silver with 1% of an element called Geranium in it.  This means it doesn't need soldering and will fuse to itself.  This was my first time using it.  The ring is mum's wedding ring.

I pierced a piece out with a saw and filed the edges.  This was incredibly emotional.  I didn't think it would effect me like that, but it did.

The sliver of yellow gold was then inlaid on the silver wire before forming it into a ring.  I don't have many pictures of the process, but I took a few of the finished ring.  I hope you can make it out.  After picking, filing, sanding and barrel polishing, the yellow gold went very dull and hard to make out.  My brother reports that it is becoming more yellow as he wears it.

The yellow is to the right of the centre in this photo.  You can also see where I fused it at the back.  I didn't do a great job, but the lack of solder meant I couldn't hide the join more.

The sliver is more obvious in this photo.

Next up is a pendent for me.  Not sure if you'll see it soon as we only have 3 more classes left before the summer break and I've also been working on a necklace for the past 300 years that I'm trying to finish!

A present for a friend

I am now at that age where my friends are turning 40.  Yes, I'm 40, good guess!  It was my oldest friend's 40th last weekend, 2 weeks before the event I suddenly realised I needed to buy her a present.  She's not an easy person to buy for... I decided something handmade would be more suitable.

I'd been thinking about an idea of making a pendent using 3 different size circles.  I cut them out of 1mm thick sterling silver sheet using a circle punch.  The mid-sized circle was left blank.  The larger and smaller circles were texturised before punching them out.

The smallest circle is patterned using a centre punch and hammer to make tiny indentations.  The largest circle was rolled through the rolling mill with a skeleton leaf.  I adore this pattern and have it in mind for some future makes.  As the pieces had burrs after punching, I had to file and sand to clean them up.  The smallest circle got a stick soldered to the reverse and the larger two had holes punched through.

This "stick" (a piece of 0.8mm round wire) was inserted through the other 2 circles, then I just used the round nosed pliers to make a bail before filing and sanding the edge.

It was really hard to take photos as I had put it in the barrel polisher, meaning it's very shiny!  I've just put it on a bought trace chain, also in sterling silver.  

This was a pretty quick make.  When I told my tutor my plans, she said I could get it done in half a session.  It actually took me a session and a half, but I work really slowly and do rather a lot of talking and eating!

Oh, and yes, the friend liked it!

poor defeated spinner ring

One of my earliest projects in silversmithing class was this fiddle ring.  I loved that ring and wore it every day.  I made it to fit on my middle finger.  Then I lost some weight.  You couldn't tell I'd lost weight, none of it came off my fat bits, it all came off my fingers!  The ring was too big... and no, I can't wear it on my thumb, my thumb is smaller than my middle finger.  I gave it to my BFF and set out to make another.

Complete and utter failure!  I only had a small piece of silver that wasn't long enough, so I rolled it through the rolling mill with a texture, and soldered on some copper.  I quite liked the two tone effect.  I made the small outer ring from square wire.  

Once the main ring is soldered, The outside is domed to keep the smaller ring in place.  The join between the silver and copper split.  I straightened, re-soldered, domed, it split.  Again and again.  Finally, I managed it!  I put the smaller ring on, domed the other end, and...

It doesn't spin!!  The outer ring is too small.

Failure.

Silversmithing update

It's been a while since I did a silversmithing update.  After the summer break, then a further enforced break whilst I had a broken shoulder, I went back to class in January.  

I've been working on the necklace that I started last year.  The copper was so tarnished it had to go in the pickle before I started.  I don't know what came over me when I decided to completely hand make a chain, madness!  The picture above is me trying to keep track of which rings were soldered, which ones were next and which grade of solder I'd used.  Solder comes in Hard, Medium, Easy and Extra Easy.  Hard has the highest melting point, so you start with this one.  If you solder something and it comes into contact with the flame again, you want it to be a higher grade so it doesn't remelt.  This would have been a lot easier to tackle if I didn't have a pattern to the chain involving copper and silver rings and larger silver rings!

I feel like I'm going to be soldering this forever.

For a bit of a break, I started another project.  Back in 2016 I made a fiddle ring.  I loved that ring and wore it every day.  Then I lost some weight.  None came off my ample behind or tummy, it came off my fingers!  Yeah, great, thanks body!  The ring no longer fits.  It was time for a new one.

I didn't have a long enough piece of silver, so I added in a copper section!  Since this photo, I filed it down and cleaned it up, but when I came to dome it (to accept the spinner ring), the solder cracked.  I'll be re-soldering this tomorrow night.  And hopefully finishing soldering the necklace... which means I have several months of filing and sanding ahead of me!

Mixed metal bracelet

Silversmith class is now on a break for the summer.  I managed to finish off a piece I was working on before we broke up.  Originally this was going to be a necklace, but it morphed into a bracelet.  I am NOW working on the matching necklace!

I showed you in a previous post how I made these rings.  I made soldered rings in copper and silver, then make a series of jump rings from 1mm silver and copper wire to join them together.  I have not copper plated the solder on the copper rings (it would copper plate the silver too!), but I don't think it's that jarring.

I made the toggle clasp from a piece of 2mm square silver wire which I left unhammered to create contrast with the hammered rings.  I soldered half a jump ring on the back and attached it with rings.  It slips through the end circle on the bracelet to do up.

This is the second bracelet I've made from large links and I love it!  It goes very well with my Adidas Superstars which have copper stripes!

I've assembled most of the necklace I'm making, I'm just soldering the jump rings (and there are loads!), but it won't be touched again until September.  Hope I don't forget about it!

Soldering rings

I am rapidly running out of things to show you - hence the lack of posting.  I have this project on the go, and I finished a quilt yesterday which I'll show soon.  Beyond that, I have 2 half finished bags and that's pretty much it!  I honestly don't know where time goes these days.  I have less house work to do as I don't make such a mess as the ex did, so why don't I have time to craft?

Anyway, here's what I've been up to in silversmithing class.

Soldering rings!  That's an elicit shot - if my tutor had seen me take that I would have got a health and safety telling off!  I soldered tons of them.  Copper ones and silver ones.  The plan was to make a simple link bracelet.

I seem to have caught the solder just beginning to melt on this photo!

Here above is the pile of unsoldered rings and the two I'd done.  You can seen how the metal changes colour with the heat.

When they were all soldered I ran them through the rolling mill to make them nice and squashed.  I think this is 2mm round wire I was using.  I love the look of this little pile.

Next, I filed and sanded them, and then took the hammer to them to add some texture.

After making some smaller rings in silver, I dumped them on the table and my tutor remarked that they'd make a nice statement necklace rather than a bracelet.  I spent quite some time messing around the with arrangement, couldn't come up with anything so used some of them to make a bracelet instead!  It's almost finished so I'll show you soon.  I do intend to make the necklace too, I just need to come up with a design.

Silver triangle

I know my silversmithing posts aren't very popular, but I do want to keep this blog as a journal for me too, so I'm going to post about it anyway!  Also, I love this piece, I'm so proud of it.

I posted about my copper triangle at the end of last year.  I then went on to make one out of silver and I'm in love with it!

This is a hollow form.  It's made with 0.8mm sheet silver, cut and soldered together and then filed to remove the joins.  The top piece has been textured by rolling it through a mill with a piece of fabric.

After finishing, I drilled a hole across one of the points to string it.

The back was polished to perfection, but I've worn it a lot and it's become marked already!

I strung it on a pre-bought sterling-silver chain.  I think it works perfectly with the design.  Now I just need to string the copper version...

domed pendants

This was something I was making in Silversmithing class last year.  I was going to post about it when I finished it, but I never actually finished it and don't know when/if I'll come back to is, so I'm posting it now for posterity.

These were to be domed pendents.  They are hollow forms.  They were made by annealing sheets of 1mm copper and cutting discs out with a disc cutter.  I then put them into a doming forming and hammered them to create the curve.  A tiny slot is filed out on one of them for each pair, on either side.  This is to make it easier to drill them later.

One is placed on top of another, with solder in between.  This is the difficulty.  Balancing 5 pieces of tiny solder, then lowering the lid on without any of the solder moving... It frustrated me so much I almost cried!  I have some silver circles cut out ready to make domed pendents, but they will have to wait until my skills improve!

Copper triangle

It's been ages since I showed you anything from my silversmithing classes.  I was working on some hollow domes, but I couldn't get them to solder together and gave up.  I will go back to them at a later date, when my head is a bit better.  

I moved on to a different hollow form, I chose a triangle.

This is the copper prototype.  Silver is expensive and it can be worthwhile having a go in copper first, especially as I love copper and wear copper jewellery too.  It started with a long thin piece of copper (5mm thin, about 8cm long) that I had to score very heavily.  I pulled it round and soldered the join.  This was then soldered to piece of sheet copper  which I had run through the rolling mill with a piece of lace to imprint a pattern on it. 

The second side was soldered on - you can see the solder really well in this picture.

The sheet was pierced with a saw close to the edge, then the filing began.  And continued.  And continued.  And then out came the sandpaper... I still have some way to go!

I have now started on the silver version, thinking I'd do some sanding over Christmas, I took some photos to show you the beginning of the process, but they were on my old phone...  I will show you again when both pieces are completed.

Stamped silver bangle

Silversmithing class started again in September but I don't really have much to show.  I made this bangle before the summer break, but finished it off and polished it in the first class back.

It's made from 3.5mm round sterling silver wire.  I formed it, cut and soldered, then filed and polished.  Before it was formed I stamped on it. I stamped the word miłość (Polish for love).  The third letter is pronounced like a W and clearly we didn't have a stamp for that, or the accents, so I improvised.  I added a pattern using various sized hole cutters, but obviously didn't punch all the way through!  I wasn't very happy with how it turned out.  The large hole cutters didn't make a very even mark on the metal.

I can also see the join.  I filed it down and sanded it, but I took off so much silver that I can see that it's slightly thinner in that area.  I should have continued stamping after it was soldered to continue the pattern, but decided to leave it on the front only.

I had also planned to make a copper bangle the same size, but I haven't got round to it.  I've only worn the bangle once or twice as I actually find it really annoying, especially at work as it bangs on the desk as I type!

Never mind, not everything can be successful!