Finally! Moving Forward

This very quiet week I have had two major break throughs. One will be glaringly visible in just a few days and the other in a couple of weeks. But at my house things are happening.

Ok, I finally went to the supplier and bought some flux. I have hesitated for so long because I feel it's harmful to both me and the environment. But I have explored all the alternatives, and there's no way to solder without flux. Fusing fine silver gets very expensive and unnecessary to use for frames, and it's also too soft. I want brass!

So now I have test soldered a couple of circular elements in brass, using the "W-flux" that I'm guessing is borax. I don't want to know. It works - I'm happy. I pickle in an environmentally friendly way, though. With citric acid solution in very high concentration. It takes a little longer, but I'm slow to start with, so it doesn't matter, really.

Now I can begin do make the designs I really want, relatively effortlessly. I need to upgrade the solder, though. Why use medium hard solder on a simple element which will be worked on once? Because I want to make things more challenging I suppose.




The other break through is my purple love from russia. I have searched high and low for some affordable charoite beads to use in my latest lavender/green creations, and found everything from amethist, dyed jasper, expensive large irregular chips (which I dislike) and unpolished slabs on eBay. Not to mention the one piece (1!) round 12mm bead from a Swedish bead store for 65 Skr! Or a full strand from the US for $100 and then some. I'm a scavenging container rat for F's sake! I don't buy beads unseen for that kind of money (unless I find a lot of money in some container some day).

But now I've found some hopefully reasonalbly good quality from a dependable source to a price where I can afford to just take a chance. If they're not good, my son can have them to make christmas ornaments or use as marbles...

Charoite - From Russia With Love

Charoite is another type of rock that as far as we know can only be found in one place on earth - along the Chara River in Siberia. It is unlikely that the same geological prerequisites have occured elsewhere. It is found where a syenite (the Murunskii Massif) has intruded into and altered limestone deposits producing a potassium feldspar metasomatite, all according to Wikipedia.

During the Soviet Union it was very little known outside the walls, except for one of a kind urns and vases in palaces, and it was not until relatively recently that it has begun to be used in jewelry making. It's sometimes used in "palaces" nowadays, too, like this luxury hotel bathroom. (I like cahroite, but that bathroom would be chopped onto cab.sized pieces if I owned it.)

It's hard to come by. At least if you want the real deal. I'm looking for it n the usual places like eBay and Etsy, and I would say that 80% of what is claimed to be charoite is not so. It's amethyst, dyed agate or jasper, dyed marble or what looks to be actual plastic. The 20 percent left is of varying quality. And it seems you can't even go by price because some quite boring pieces still have a high enough price.
I have a slab of one-sidedly polished rough at home, a gift from my husband. I have managed to aly my hands on a few nice nuggets that I might be able to do something with, and some rondelles. And some fakes. Fortunately, my fakes instead proved to be some really nice chevron amethyst that had been mislabeled. And I like amethyst, too.

Amethyst and Sterling Silver Bracelet

Here is a cute sterling silver bracelet featuring 10 large faceted nuggets of chevron (banded) amethyst. The beads range from bright to dark to pinkish to deep purple to give a playful contrast together with the haphazard faceting of the nugget beads. They have been simply wrapped in bright sterling wire and finished off with a simple toggle clasp, which is, of course, hand made by me. 20.2cm - 8" for a medium ladies' wrist.

Cloudy Quartz and Sterling Silver Bracelet

For lack of a better name I call these quartz beads cloudy. Quartz comes in many shades and colours and there's no strict names to the variants except "rock crystal" "amethyst" "rose quartz" "smoky quartz". These were named  "lemon quartz" by the seller, but that usually refers to an almost greenish yellow shade of quartz. These have not the slightest hint of either green nor yellow - they're tan.
They are very evenly milky making them translucent and discretely shimmering. The 10mm round beads are set in medium sized sterling daisy spacers and smooth beads, then wrapped in medium sterling wire and connected by a soldered closed sterling jump ring. It looks elegent but is very sturdy. The clasp is hand made from sterling silver wire and the whole piece has been gently oxidized and buffed. Length 21.5cm - 8.5".

Aquamarine and Copper Bracelet

Here's a rustic and lushious aquamarine beads copper wrapped bracelet that will catch anyone's eye. The large smooth 12mm milky aquamarine beads are fitted inside loopy petal-like copper bead caps and wrapped together with medium heavy copper wire. Some beads are lighter, some are darker, some translucent and partly transparent giving nice variation and contrast.

Smoky Quartz and Copper/Sterling Silver Bracelet

Fall calls for those warm hues of orange and brown, such as smoky quartz and copper.
Arranged with a little more details and contrast, the 10mm micro-faceted smoky quarts beads are wrapped with large copper daisy spacers and smooth copper 3mm beads, using sterling silver wire. The clasp is handmade from copper wire. Length is 21.5cm - 8.5", for a slightly larger ladies wrist.

Prehnite and Sterling Silver Bracelet

I made this bracelet for those summery days when the glow of prehnite against the tanned skin looks so yummy you can almost taste it. Well, summer's gone but the bracelet remains. And it still looks good whithout the summer tan.
It is a simple, yet elegant, wire wrapped bracelet, with 10mm round micro-faceted prehnite beads linked together with sterling silver wire. The clasp is hand made in a simple style from a slightly heavier wire to match the rest of the bracelet. The bracelet has been lengthened with a short piece of heavy rolo chain to fit a slightly larger ladies wrist. Total length is 21.5cm - 8.5".

And, yes, this bracelet has been used. By me. A lot.