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July 07, 2012

Silver Spiral Ring with Smoky Quartz

Youth Baseball = LOTS of time to make jewelry

If someone were to compare watching baseball to watching paint dry, I wouldn't be surprised.  It is a great sport, but pretty slow.  A lot of practice pitches, practice swings, balls and strikes and a few hits and runs here and there.  Not much activity when you consider the game takes about 2 hours. 

I always bring a huge (heavy) bag filled with jewelry supplies and tools.  Thank goodness I finally found a lightweight ring mandrel - the steel one combined with all the beads and wires was killing my back.

Silver Spiral Ring with Smoky Quartz

I have been wanting to make this ring design ever since I saw it in the book Beautiful Wire Jewelry for Beaders by Irena Miech. Normally, I try to follow book instructions precisely but, in this case, I didn't.  There is more information on why in my Jewelry Book Review blog.

To make this spiral ring, I used 16g sterling silver wire for the shank and 24g wire to wrap the stone, a smoky quartz, to the ring shank.  I tried several different techniques to attach the stone, but found it was easiest to secure the stone tightly if the wire goes under the spiral on each side (enlarge the first picture and you should be able to see what I mean).  Then I made two wraps on each side of the wire that secures the stone.  The wire crosses over itself inside the ring shank resulting in a coil that stays secure.

The ring was not very comfortable at first (probably due to the shank width), but after wearing it a little while, it feels fabulous.  I usually wear the ring on my middle finger.

I made several variations for all of my friends.  I made a gold ring that has a straight ring shank in the back.  That seems to work better for someone who is more petite.  It has a turquoise stone.  I also made a silver ring just like this one with a turquoise stone.

And then I lost my Mojo...

Mojo is your magic.  These rings were flying off my pliers and mandrel in perfect shape until I tried to make one with a copper shank and gold wire.  At first, I never worried about making the spirals even, they just were.  The rings sizes either came out right, or I adjusted the bends in the back of the shank.  

It was all so easy until I tried using the copper wire.  I think I have at least four half finished rings in copper.  Once I got the ring shank right, the gold wire I was using to secure the stone broke during the wrapping process.  I'll try copper again (after I get my mojo back!)

2 comments:

  1. I like this ring. It seems to be a versatile design!

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  2. No doubt, this smoky ring is designed impeccably. I am glad to see this since i was looking for something like this only.

    ReplyDelete