Sacerdotesse

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Nearly finished 2 more pieces. The one on the left is going to be called “templar amulet”. I’ve got some ruby spheres coming and will place one in the back cavity of the dome, so that the red shows through like a templar cross. I’ll also put some garnets in the “portholes” and top toggle.

Ordered some big open link silver chain yesterday, and I’m curious how it is going to look on the a piece. I’ve also ordered some jump links to use on this one and on the other dome I have created. They are more of a rounded triangle shape, I think they were originally made for hanging briolettes from?

I’ve created another donut.  Seem to be stuck on the shape for some reason!  I have one or 2 more “in my head” before I’m going to move on to some different shapes.    This one.. I finished off when my mother was here looking after my little boy.  We had some fun deciding which cabochons to put into the bezels.  She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m thinking of making her a piece as a thankyou gift for all the time she has spent looking after my little one while I have been at work.   Now I know what color stones she is going to like.

I took my pendant along to Hadar’s course (must write a post on that soon..) and got my pendant fired while I was there.  I’m thinking that I didn’t put enough vent holes in it, as part of the side blew out.  :(  Anyway, I patched it here at home (now we are in mid semester break - I have a little bit of time!) and torched fired it.. the patching worked really well, and the piece looked good.  Some aura 22 and LOS, and a few orissa garnets.. and Voila!

Finally got it fired and Aura applied around the inner rim and outer band as well as the inner of the toggle. I put a rock crystal in it for the photos, but I have a black tourmaline rutilated quartz sphere coming from China.. hope it fits!

I finally took some photos of my new donut/ring with the “toggles” attached.. they have pre-formed bezels in them so that I can set a 3mm cab stone there.

After polishing and re-doing the liver of sulphur around 20 times, I’m finally satisfied with the finish I got on my first donut!

Well I tried out LOS (Liver Of Sulfur) today for the first time.  Not particularly impressive results, unfortunately.  The piece looks OK.. but not as colourful as I would have liked.  I may polish it back and try again later at some point.

I’ve also put the toggles on my new donut.  It’s looking good!  I’m a bit worried about it not holding together during firing.. hopefully it won’t slump in the middle which is my biggest concern.  I found a tutorial on firing donuts, holefully I can fire it in this position when th time comes to prevent slumping.

Third times the charm..

Well, after my third go at applying Aura to my first ever pendant, I’m finally happy with it! I fired again last night and burnished it hot. I’m getting much better results by firing in the dark, so I think I’ll continue on with that.

I’ve burned through a few polishing pads in the tries I’ve made..  it’s amazing how much stuff you can use up while you are trying to work out how to get a technique exactly right!

I put the aura 22 on a pendant I had made in my first class.. however I had a problem with it de-laminating from one section of the rim.  I have a theory that it delaminates if it hasn’t been heated up enough so…  I put another layer on.. and overheated it so that the gold disappeared into the silver.  Doh.  I remembered what the lovely May Bartrum had told me about burnishing the gold when it was hot, and burnished it hot after my second attempt.  Like keum boo.. apparently this helps the gold to fuse to the silver underneath better.   I’d love to try my hand at Keum boo sometime!

Today, I messed around with Aura 22 and my new blow torch for the first time. My first round was a bit of a disaster.

I torched the ring I’m working on outside, but this meant that I couldn’t get a good look at the color of the piece and I think I over heated it because all of the gold seemed to disappear into the silver!