Marissa's Jewels....

For the Bride....

For the Bridesmaids...

For the Moms...

Enjoy!
Deb

Marissa's Jewels Continued....

Coming back to jewelry making after a two year sabbatical has been an experience!  Everything takes twice as long as I think it should...I promise I'll be the most organized jewelry artist on the planet before this is done...since I have to search and find everything I need and I'm labeling all my drawers and boxes as I go along...I spent an hour this  morning looking for my 3mm bezel cups!!  I bet they heard me snarling all the way to Seattle...

I've almost finished Marissa's pendant and earrings...a little more sanding to go and a couple of bezel cups to add...I hope to fire them tomorrow and then on to the enameling....

Enjoy!

Deb

Earthly Joys and Natural Wonders....

I am still finding myself drawn to fiber art...and combining it in with my jewelry to make a statement...

 Enjoy!

Deb

Thowing Some Wool Around...

My First Wet Felted Scarf ...merino and mohair...

"Harvest Dance"

Enjoy!

Deb

For Marissa...

This is going to be a bit unusual...this post is for my niece, Marissa.  I'm making the jewelry for her wedding as my gift to her and she wanted to see what I planning.  And some of my online friends might enjoy seeing the pieces, too....

Marissa, I'm thinking of doing variations of leaf motifs for all of the jewelry.  For the moms I have a design that has become one of my signature pieces, a stylized leaf shape.

For Will's mom, wearing black and gold, a piece similar to the one in the center below...gold and silver with a sunstone.  It would be on a vermiel mini omega chain.

For your mom, the same design set with holley blue chalcedony.

For the bridesmaids, an enameled ginkgo leaf...like this one but without the purple...all the enamel in shades of green...

And for you, a sprig of leaves with enameled leaves...

 Open work like the one above...on a strand of green amethysts instead of the garnet...and with enameling and stones set like the piece below...

Let me know what you think...

Deb

"Fossils" Big Hole Bead Pendant...

Did you ever let a gallery have a piece of your art work to sell and then really hope that it didn't?  This was one for me...I'm glad to have it back ...

Enjoy!

Deb

A new jewelry photo...

A wrap around ring with garnet cabochon and Keum Boo accent...

Enjoy!

Deb

Ammonite Earrings...

I thought I would post a photo of these...I made them last fall, but never got a good photo of them before...

I layered a small molded silver ammonite over a slice of a real ammonite fossil and a textured silver circle and made a pair of sterling silver earwires to hold it all together....

Here's a photo of the back of one of them so you can see how the earwires are shaped.

Enjoy!

Deb

Adventures in Color...Tints, Tones and Shades....

Tints are a pure color mixed with white (or diluted with water for our dyeing purposes). Tones are color mixed with gray and shades are color mixed with black. By mixing the colors with gray or black I achieved the earthier, muted colors that I am interested in working with.

I made many mixtures of warm blue-violet with water, gray (10% black and 90% water) and black dye.

After making many yarn test samples I came up with mixtures that gave me the colors I was looking for.

I made test dye samples for several more colors, added them to my color wheels with notes on the porportions of color, water and black dye.....

….and then it was play time!!

"Moss"

Blue Faced Leicester wool, Mulberry silk and firestar

"Blueberries"

Merino wool, Mulberry silk and angelina

"Boysenberries"

Merino, angora, silk and angelina

I am very happy with the batts I made with the fiber from my first hand mixed dye experiments.  The "Boysenberries" colorway is exactly what I wanted for a shawl that I have been planning for myself.  I'm going to have to dye up a large batch of fiber and I know I can match the color again ... I have the recipes on my color wheel cards!  Then I'm going to spin it up and crochet myself a lovely shawl...and I'm already thinking of designs for the shawl pin I'll make to go with it...something with silver and amethyst I think....

Enjoy!

Deb

Adventures in Color...Tints, Tones and Shades....

Tints are a pure color mixed with white (or diluted with water for our dyeing purposes). Tones are color mixed with gray and shades are color mixed with black. By mixing the colors with gray or black I achieved the earthier, muted colors that I am interested in working with.

I made many mixtures of warm blue-violet with water, gray (10% black and 90% water) and black dye.

After making many yarn test samples I came up with mixtures that gave me the colors I was looking for.

I made test dye samples for several more colors, added them to my color wheels with notes on the porportions of color, water and black dye.....

….and then it was play time!!

"Moss"

Blue Faced Leicester wool, Mulberry silk and firestar

"Blueberries"

Merino wool, Mulberry silk and angelina

"Boysenberries"

Merino, angora, silk and angelina

I am very happy with the batts I made with the fiber from my first hand mixed dye experiments.  The "Boysenberries" colorway is exactly what I wanted for a shawl that I have been planning for myself.  I'm going to have to dye up a large batch of fiber and I know I can match the color again ... I have the recipes on my color wheel cards!  Then I'm going to spin it up and crochet myself a lovely shawl...and I'm already thinking of designs for the shawl pin I'll make to go with it...something with silver and amethyst I think....

Enjoy!

Deb

Adventures in Color...Making the Color Wheels...

Now for the fun part! It's time to dye some fiber samples...

My dyeing set up

I cut 1 to 2 yard lengths of an undyed wool yarn and soaked them in a mixture of water with a few drops of Synthrapol (a wtting agent - it allows the wool to soak up the water) and a small sprinkle of citric acid (you can use white vinegar instead – I don't like the smell).

I placed a piece of the yarn on a small square of plastic wrap and added enough dye to completely wet it.

 I wrapped up the plastic wrap around the yarn and placed it in a small canning jar which I had previously numbered from 1 to 10 with a Sharpie marker.

I kept track of which color went into which jar in my dyeing journal.

I put the 10 canning jars on the turntable of my old microwave (IMPORTANT! Keep a separate set of utensils, pots, jars, etc. for dyeing...NEVER use them again for food preparation).

I microwaved the jars with the wrapped yarn for 3 minutes. There was a lot of popping sounds (like making microwave popcorn) as the plastic wrap expanded with the heat.

I let the wrapped yarn cool (they were VERY hot!) and then removed the plastic wrap and rinsed any excess dye out in clean water.

To keep my colors from getting mixed up while they were drying I punched holes in a piece of cardstock and labeled the holes for each color.

When the yarns were all dry I made up color wheels; one each for the warm and the cool palettes. I cut 1 ½ by 5 ½ pieces of card stock, punched a hole in one end and labeled it with the color.

I taped one end of the yarn to the cardstock and then wrapped the yarn around it 6 or 7 times, pulled the end of the yarn under the wraps and secured it with a half hitch knot. I repeated this for all of the yarns and placed then on metal rings (hardware store...usually near where the make keys).

And here are the two color wheels (or fans)...

Coming soon...tints, tones and shades...

Enjoy!

Deb

Adventures in Color...Making the Color Wheels...

Now for the fun part! It's time to dye some fiber samples...

My dyeing set up

I cut 1 to 2 yard lengths of an undyed wool yarn and soaked them in a mixture of water with a few drops of Synthrapol (a wtting agent - it allows the wool to soak up the water) and a small sprinkle of citric acid (you can use white vinegar instead – I don't like the smell).

I placed a piece of the yarn on a small square of plastic wrap and added enough dye to completely wet it.

 I wrapped up the plastic wrap around the yarn and placed it in a small canning jar which I had previously numbered from 1 to 10 with a Sharpie marker.

I kept track of which color went into which jar in my dyeing journal.

I put the 10 canning jars on the turntable of my old microwave (IMPORTANT! Keep a separate set of utensils, pots, jars, etc. for dyeing...NEVER use them again for food preparation).

I microwaved the jars with the wrapped yarn for 3 minutes. There was a lot of popping sounds (like making microwave popcorn) as the plastic wrap expanded with the heat.

I let the wrapped yarn cool (they were VERY hot!) and then removed the plastic wrap and rinsed any excess dye out in clean water.

To keep my colors from getting mixed up while they were drying I punched holes in a piece of cardstock and labeled the holes for each color.

When the yarns were all dry I made up color wheels; one each for the warm and the cool palettes. I cut 1 ½ by 5 ½ pieces of card stock, punched a hole in one end and labeled it with the color.

I taped one end of the yarn to the cardstock and then wrapped the yarn around it 6 or 7 times, pulled the end of the yarn under the wraps and secured it with a half hitch knot. I repeated this for all of the yarns and placed then on metal rings (hardware store...usually near where the make keys).

And here are the two color wheels (or fans)...

Coming soon...tints, tones and shades...

Enjoy!

Deb

Adventures in Color...Tertiaries

The Tertiary Colors are combinations of one primary color and one secondary color:
Yellow-Orange
Red-Orange
Red-Violet
Blue-Violet
Blue-Green
Yellow-Green

I mixed 150 ml (½ cup) of the primary and secondary colors for both the warm and cool palettes, giving me 12 more colors to work with.

Coming soon...dyeing and making a sample color wheel.

Enjoy!

Deb