Rings rings and more rings

This week's focus was on rings; other than take two classes, I've never attempted rings, and the pile of wire I have added to my scraps will attest to it! Yikes!! I started out doing simple spirals to get the sizing concept down, using different gauges of sterling and gold filled and different tempers. After doing the twist thing I filed the edges of the ends and tumbled for quite some time to harden and shine. I wasn't unhappy with these. Then I decide hey, I can take the next step, adding in a stone! After managing to kill a bunch of wire coming up with just these few, I ordered tutorials from Remy and Jim.... more to come!!!

Wrist jewelry

I went back to the first class I took at Beadfest for this week's work. I started out doing simple bangles, wanting to get the bundling down properly, then I started doing some twisting (this is fun stuff!), and did a couple of cuffs as well, then I added in some stones to the top of the bracelets, then did a watch with the technique (it was a productive week!). Fun stuff!

Week 4 - wire ring

After I took the pictures of this I almost didn't post it, but I decided I had to; its a 'learning' experience. I learned the concepts on how to make this ring, even if I didn't execute it very well, lol! A good portion of the issue was that I couldn't see all that well (eye surgery the end of August); that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Anyway, 'conceptually' in the class we created a double prong ended piece (see week 2's post for my prepping for the class). We then formed the ring using a ring mandel, attached the pronged piece and then wrapped it. Sounds like cake, right? 'Conceptually' not too hard, execution? Needs some serious work, lol!!!

Week 3 - Beaded bangle

This week's piece is one of my classes from Beadfest. It is so far from being perfect, but it was a great class with a wonderful teacher - Dale Cougar Armstrong. I learned a tremendous amount and can't wait to repeat the process! We used silver and gold wire for this, twisted some of each and then assembled the piece. This is a precision type of process, if done correctly can be beautiful (this is an example of what happens when its not done completely correctly, lol!!).