Learning about String Art

It seems that string art jewelry is showing up everywhere just this week. Maybe it's something in the water. I spent my jewelry time this week experimenting with it, and am sharing 3 of the 5 pendants I made. The others are just as nice, or possibly nicer, but they already have new homes, and I'll get their photos for my records later.

Here are some of the things I learned:

• Nice quality sewing or machine embroidery thread works really well for this technique.
• Spooled thread is easier to manage than embroidery floss, regardless of what the tutorials all say.
  
• Variegated thread is lots of fun to work with and gives really interesting effects.
• The direction of the coil makes a difference in the way the thread lies and has a BIG impact on how easy it is to get it to look nice and stay in place.
• Because you are wrapping in several different directions, sometimes the coil direction will be against you, and you'll just have to learn to work with it.
  
• Generous application of sealant is important to durability.
• The tension on the final wrap before the knots is critical.
• Getting the coil uniformly stretched without wobbles is the very hardest part -- still working on that one.
  
• String art is still fun, 45 years after freshman geometry class.

I'll be experimenting more next week because I bought a few spools of thread on Friday and can't wait to try them. I also bought some steel wire for frames, to see how that works. The dark annealed finish is interesting and should contrast nicely with the gloss of the threads.

Technical details: 18g hardware store copper wire for the frame, 22g colored craft wire and/or niobium wire for coils, 28g copper wire for the herringbone bails, Sulky brand #30 mercerized cotton sewing thread in both solid and variegated for the string weaving.

Are any of you playing with this? Want to talk about it in the comments?

Thanks for looking, and don't forget to look at all the beautiful stuff over at Year of Jewelry.

Aspect Ratio and a Blast from the Past

Remember last week that the folks at On the Rocks were interested in chainmaille rings? Well, I spent most of my jewelry time this week wrestling with creating the perfect chainmaille ring. I have one that I wear all the time, in European 6-in-one weave. It is close to the perfect simple, elegant and comfortable ring. I say this as someone whose hands are prone to swelling, so rings in general are not something I can wear any more unless they are very flexible.

So I am trying to recreate this exact weave. Unfortunately, it seems that the wire I used for it was from an irregular lot, labeled as 22g but somewhat oversize -- possibly IRL a 21 g. So when I naively treated it as 22g, the weave was loose and floppy, and when I tried to use 20g, it was unworkably stiff. My mandrel set is in .5mm increments, and the AR is so sensitive on this weave that I haven't found the exact match yet, and I don't have any more of this weird wire. I spent a lot of time playing with the math, and came to the conclusion that the perfect AR for this weave as a ring is 4.75. Then I had to figure out the ring size for each of the gauges of wire. Either I have to find an alternative mandrel -- a possibility, I have a bunch of mandrels in inches that I haven't tried out yet -- or I will splurge and add an ounce of 21g to my next wire order. Trouble is, I'm trying to use up wire I have, for budgetary reasons, and would like to put off buying wire for a few weeks at least. Or until I have a job if that happens sooner.


However, those things don't make for much of a picture for Year of Jewelry. On Friday morning, Gen Smith posted a Youtube of Camille Sharon making string art pendants, and I decided to take a break from math and rings and useful things like that and try my hand at one. I used some 18g copper for the frame, 22g craft wire for the coil and one plain and one variegated rayon machine embroidery thread (contrary to the video's advice and because it was handy) for the string. I made a nicer bail, just because I can. It needs some practice to refine it, but definitely a fun, quick project with a TON of potential. I highly recommend it.

Next week I have to make a bunch of earrings, also plan some Earth Day fun with grandchildren, and make up a nice presentation for Carolyn and Gonzo at On the Rocks. When that is under control, I hope to post a bunch of new things to Etsy for sale. Oh, and look for a job.

Thanks for looking! Till next time.

Great week, not-so-great jewelry project

Don't you just hate it when your blog software eats your post?? That's what just happened here, but I'll try my best to remember what I meant to say, ok?

This week was full of win. On Saturday, after a lovely birthday lunch (thanks, Dad!) and a trip to Spice House (mmm, smells so good) we decided to drive past the gallery where I have some pieces for sale. I had been concerned that they might be suffering in this economy, and was wondering if maybe I should just try to sell my things on the internet. Imagine how pleased I was to walk in the door and see the shop full of people, eagerly buying things. Even better, when the owner saw me, she exclaimed,"Oh, I have a check for you!" They had sold several pairs of earrings as well as a bracelet, one of the high price point items. In fact, they only had 3 of my things left.

After a nice conversation in which I agreed to bring more earrings and some rings, and also to bring some other new items to swap out with the stock that hasn't moved yet, I asked, just in passing, whether they might be interested in my teaching some classes. She loved the idea -- it seems that her fiance, the other owner and a very talented wire artist, has been so busy with custom work that he no longer has time to teach, and they have been looking for a way to offer beginner classes. So I'm also preparing proposals for a couple beginner level classes. I'm thinking of bead-drop earrings with hand-made wires, and a bead pendant with a simple bail. I'll be very busy this week. Yaay for busy!

Now, my Year of Jewelry project falls more in the category of "best laid plans", I'm afraid. It was supposed to be the next installment in my embellished herringbone series. I think the title for this embellishment is "Lumpy Ugly Embellishment Option." I don't like it at all. I actually cut away about half of the work I had done, it was so ugly. It also follows a pattern -- I have a string of these beautiful moss agate beads, one lovelier than the next, and I have yet to make a project from one of them that pleases me.


Still, you deserve the technical details -- 28g sterling wire wrapped on 22g sterling wire, 2mm sterling beads as embellishment to the herringbone weave. The stone is about 1 1/2" or 35mm tall and has a very pronounced mossy pattern. My lesson for this week is that this is not the way to embellish herringbone, and the next one of these beads will be treated as a cab in a pendant.

Thanks for stopping by, and of course I love to read any and all comments!

Another week, another pair of earrings

I came to jewelry-making from a needlework background. In fact, I have several pieces of embroidered jewelry that are very beautiful and involved a lot of work and lovely materials. For some reason, though, they are always seen as novelty pieces, something you would wear to a quilters' meeting, but not "real" jewelry. I never understood that, but the truth is that once I started working in wire and beads or gemstones, my work gets a LOT more respect, regardless that it is using the exact techniques I used with silk or even metallic thread and a threaded needle. Go figure.

In any case, these earrings are, as promised, the next variation on the herringbone stitch earrings from last week. I made the hoop diameter 1/2 inch smaller for a slightly smaller, rounder earring. I also bowed out the sides a bit more, making for a slightly wider earring, at least at the bottom of the hoop.

After the herringbone portion was finished, I added #11 seed beads in a blue iris colorway. The beads are stitched in place using a backstitch. The technique is similar to one that is used in a form of embroidery called hemstitching. In that technique, threads are pulled out of the fabric adjacent to the hem, and various stitches are used to group and embellish the remaining crossthreads, creating a lacy but geometric effect.

Anyway, I'm pleased with this first variation, and have several more in mind, so I'll be working on those. And as long as I have to keep making herringbone base earrings, I'll be taking step-by-step photos so I can publish a tutorial for them. Since you can use the same technique for earrings, a bail for a focal bead, the bail on a wire-wrapped piece, and probably several other things I haven't thought of yet, I figure it might be a nice value if anyone is interested.

Apologies in advance for the photo -- Photoshop dot com wasn't happy about allowing me to upload so I wasn't able to edit it at all. I would have cropped it, at the least.

Thanks for looking. You know I love to hear your comments and critiques, how your day is going, whatever.

This is also posted at CWJ's Year of Jewelry. If you haven't already done so, stop by there to see all the wonderful work. You'll drool, I promise.

Back in Synch

After the last week with no inspiration, or more accurately, flawed inspiration, this week's project fell into place very nicely. I've been thinking about earrings a lot as they seem to be something people are interested in buying. And I needed to do something that was not a new skill to be learned in just a few days.

I've made many pendants using a herringbone bail, and have refined the technique to the point that it looks good and I can create it without too much drama. I have also made several post/hoop style earrings in the past several weeks. These earrings combine the two techniques to create a very simple classic earring, one that I would wear on a daily basis. They are woven in herringbone weave with three wraps between crossings using 28g sterling wire on a 20g sterling core. They have a straight post that hooks into a loop. This creates an earring that sits close to the ear rather than hanging from a wire, and is my all-time favorite type of earring. I wove them flat and then shaped them around a wine cork, making a loop with about a 7/8 inch or 22mm diameter. I find this a nice size to wear -- large enough not to disappear but not so big as to be considered gaudy or inappropriate for work.

This particular pair of earrings is very plain, which I find elegant. My next project will involve experimenting with ways to ornament this pattern. I'm pretty sure I can find some nice ways to incorporate or add crystals or beads to zing them up a bit, for those who prefer a fancier earring.

In case you're interested, the weaving took about 45 minutes per earring and used about 5 feet or 1.5 meters of the fine wire. Because I wanted a seamless finish, I worked with the entire length from the beginning. Yes, it was substantially work hardened by the end of the weaving, thanks for asking. I think it was worth it, though, and I've done enough herringbone to have some tricks to minimize the handling of all but the part of the wire closest to the actual work at any given point. Each earring took 7 inches of the core wire. So the total for the project was 14" of 20g sterling, 10' of 28g sterling, and 2 small silver beads to cover the endings. Total time was just over 2 hours, including shaping the frames, weaving, preparing the posts and smoothing the posts and their ends for comfort.

Because of the computer problems we had -- Augie's computer attacked by evil malware and not yet repaired -- the photo was edited on my little pink computer usingPhotoshop.com. I'm very pleased with the service so far. I haven't had the time or opportunity to use more than their basic tools, but it looks like there is a lot of functionality there in a friendly format. If I have any complaints, it would be about the speed of working online. On Saturday it was so slow that it was hardly usable, while today -- midday Sunday -- it was quite quick and worked really well.

Thanks for looking at my work. I appreciate any comments or critique you might have.

Running in circles and waving my hands

Did you notice that it is not Sunday any more?? That it is in fact, Thursday? Well, it's been that kind of a week. I had tons and tons of really cool ideas. But the first one, while nice, was sooooo slow that I put it aside for one that was supposedly quicker. It was quicker, all right, up to the point of not working out and turning into a weird mass of tangled wire and beads. So then I tried a fallback that has been in my mind for several weeks, and it came out okay -- not good, mind you, but okay.

So we scanned it and Augie said "OMG the finish is rubbed off all over the work and it looks really bad." I looked at the piece and couldn't see it, but the scan really did look bad. But before I could do anything else, evil malware attacked the big box computer, and I couldn't get to the scan anyway. By this time I was late and cranky and decided to put it out of my mind and post later than normal.

Today, I got out the earrings and Augie got out the camera and took a photo to see if there was any point in trying to salvage them as a YOJ project or if I should just start over yet again. Lo and behold, the picture came out okay, Photoshop.com works really nicely as an online editing option, and thank you little pink netbook for working and letting me post.

These earrings are based on Victoria Gould's yarn ball tut, done in 22g niobium. I wanted to learn to do this because I thought they might make extra-cute stitch markers. These are the 5th and 6th tries to get a nice shape, and I need a bunch more practice to get them nice enough to suit me. I have enough wire to do that. They are kinda cute, I guess, and I did start to learn a new element, so the week is not a total waste.

Meanwhile, the box computer will be carried off to the gurus to be cleansed and we will be relying on the netbook for computing for the next while. Fortunately, even if we develop wireless problems, there are a Subway and 2 Starbucks in east walking distance so I should be able to stay in touch. And my project for this week is one that I KNOW works.

I love to get your comments. Thanks for looking.

Online in Pink

I said that as soon as I was able to get online with the little computer I'd post a review of sorts. I am now online and here it is. Bear in mind I've only had the computer about a week, so I haven't had a chance to try out every little thing it can do, but I've tried out a lot of things and it has impressed me in every case.

The computer is an Acer Aspire in the 8.9" size with the 6 cell battery. It is really small and lightweight even with the large battery. I'd say that more than 6 hours of battery life (yes, I tested that right away) is worth the small increase in weight. It will still fit comfortably into my purse or any of the totes or briefcases I might want to use.

For all its small size, however, the screen is really easy to read and look at. I've discovered that it makes an outstanding PDF reader, both for stories and articles and for tutorials. Imagine being able to open a jewelry tutorial, set it beside your lapdesk, and go to work without having to print it out. No piles of paper, no pages to get messed up, no losing your place, it's all right there, easily navigated and ready whenever you need it.

The keyboard is small, too, and I am having a bit of a learning curve getting to the point that I'm not tripping over my own fingers. However, I think that a few more days of typing on this machine will be enough to take care of that. I'm already noticing an improvement.

The big challenge for me is the trackpad. Again, it's a matter of lack of experience. Although I used a laptop extensively when I was working, I nearly always used a mouse, so I don't have much practice using the touchpad. From other reviews I have read, that may be a blessing since I understand that the Aspire touchpad is set up a bit differently from the standard. In any case, I'm also improving at that, and don't think it will be a problem for long.

Although it came preloaded with a trial of Microsoft Office and of course with Internet Explorer, I loaded Firefox and Openoffice cuz that's the kind of gal I am. Installation was quick and easy. I put all the stuff I won't be using into a folder on the desktop and will uninstall when I'm sure I've made the right decision. I had no difficulty setting FF and OO as the defaults, either. I was also able to import my bookmarks from our other computer. The only very minor inconvenience will be teaching Firefox my passwords, and that will just happen as I use the various sites.

Finally, did I mention that my very own personal netbook is pink? It could be Breast Cancer Awareness pink if I am feeling high-minded, or it could be Pink Cadillac pink if I'm feeling retro, or it could be Barbie pink if I'm feeling all lipstick feminist, or it could be rhodochrosite pink if I'm in jewelry design mode, or it could be Invisible Pink Unicorn pink except for the Invisible and Unicorn parts. Which shall it be today? You'll only know if I tell you.

In fairness, there are a couple features that bother some people. Mainly, it doesn't have a CD/DVD drive. Since I'm not particularly interested in looking at movies on this computer and since I probably won't be installing much more software, that is not a particular drawback for me.

Anyway, I really like this computer a lot. Every little thing about it has performed better than I expected. If you don't mind not being able to play CDs or DVDs without a separate drive, I would give this an unconditional recommendation. Besides, it's pink. Did I mention that?