laurieopal

I'm back from Fogcon where I saw lots of folks I like, who I don't see that often.  And I have a jade commission with stunning stones.  I'll be putting up a photo of them later.

This photo is a calcopyrite (gorgeous) pendant set in sterling. Stone is far more brilliant then it photographs. It's almost sequin-like in multiple blues with a touch of gold. Design was made to both set off and reflect the stone. It's about 1.75"

I've been working very intensely in wax and am temporarily and normally burned out. I'll work in metal and do the catch up the work that gets suspended when I'm carving.

I have a vividly red patterned ammonite carving that is set in an open space with jagged ribbon like work around that space. I want to set it with small precious stones. The ammonite red will be difficult to match in either rubies or sapphires. I may end up with cinnamon diamonds. And speaking of cinnamon diamonds, they are going to work perfectly with the large Ethiopian mountain opal whose setting is just cast. I'll be polishing it tomorrow.
It's full of vivid reds and greens and the background color is a brown that looks fabulous with the cinnamon diamonds.

Also just cast a larimar astronomical that will have a blue diamond satellite circling it, and a green/orange ammonite set in textured silver waves. I should have these 2 pendants at Wiscon.

I finished the waxes, finally, of the silver necklace for the antique Thai peacock tail patterned hoops that I wrote about earlier. The last work was carving settings for tiny diamonds in some of the links. Because they are antique, the hoops themselves need to stay basically untouched. So they will be suspended from riveted bands set with small diamonds from which they can be removed intact.

And it's spring here! I'm getting my garden ready for planting. It makes me very happy.