Do the "family jewels" count?
Doc
What's The Nicest Piece of Jewelry That You Own?
by minimus 81 Replies latest jw friends
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eva luna
DoC,
only if they need polishing.............
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eva luna
Tal,
I have a wire wrapping book that has directions for your Bysintine Chain. I greatly admire this type of work. Also the Egytptain styles too.I just do simple wire wraping.
My favorite braclet is made of carnelian ovals, rondels, 3mm rounds and random silver beads. Strung on accuflex with a heavy silver toggle. Another is one I found in Italy.. . This is made from very old red coral and random silver beads. Made by an Italian Hippy Dude that lived through the 60's .Old beach coral is given to babies for good luck and considered precious.
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HintOfLime
I'm not really into jewelry...
But I do have an original Junghans Mega atomic wrist-watch, a gift - which is pretty neat to me. The first wrist-watch to have a built-in radio that syncs with the atomic clock. Every night at 2 am (or at the push of a button), the watch resets, with the hands dancing around, resyncing to the atomic clock in Boulder, CO to within 1/10th of a second. (Kind of neat that it is a fully digital watch with an analog movement - the hands don't spin the way a conventional analog watch does, but snap from place to place). To set the watch, all you do is pick your current time zone +/- GMT.
It may not have gold or dimonds - but it represents a new age in time-keeping.
- Lime
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talesin
Eva, I would be interested to see that. The method we were using is to wrap the annealed wire around a mandrell, then cut the rings with a jewellery saw. Then, each ring is joined to the others using a pair of jeweller's pliers in each hand - so labour-intensive. And of course, then soldering not all, but key links. I will have to take a look in what we call the "bible" to see if they speak of a wrapping method.
I have a lovely Queen's Link bracelet, but only wear it for special occasions. The rings are large, and too easily bent. Always scared I'm gonna knock it on something and bend the links outa shape.
tal
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talesin
Oh, I have a gold watch my grandmere gave me, from the 30s. :))
t
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eva luna
tal
Wire wrapping is just any old way to wrap wire. Like what you would do on a mandrell or rosary pliers. Or I have an old ivory cutical remover that I use to make jump rings and earwires. I am not a smithy. So I just use a leather mallet or a ball peen hammer.
I have never heard of the Queen's Link. I'll be looking that up . My bible for beads and findings is FireMountain Gems. It's as big as an AID Book.
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Band on the Run
RE: yellow and white gold. As I posted earlier, silver drains color from my face. Women who make and sell sterling jewelry refuse to sell to me. It is very hard to see any yellow gold pieces in the stores and malls here. One day I went to Manhattan with a theme: the posh jewelry stores. I did Tiffany's, Cartier, Van Clef and Arpels and Buccellati. They are fairly close to each other.
Most of the gold available was yellow gold. I was so shocked that I asked a sales person/manager about it. She said customers of this type of store desire yellow gold. There were only a few pieces of white gold. Perhaps these people purchase platinum when they want a cool metal.
I love the sculptural qualities of chunky silver. One cool, inexpensive piece I have is a Tibetan necklace that is very chunky. It is composed of colored yack bones. No, it is not corporate jewelry. I am tall so I love chunky pieces.
The Tibetan necklace came from a bizarre market here. If I purchased it in NY or NJ, the mark up would have been astronomical. I try to avoid overly costume pieces. There were amazing deals and only a few pieces would be too costumey.
My preferences have changed over time. When I was younger, I wanted pretty, dainty pieces. Now I seek sophisticated and bold. One of my favorite jewelry stores is the lower floor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The boutqiue is full of slightly expensive, more avant-garde pieces with an edge. The aesthetic is very different from a mall jewelry store.
Does anyone else go crazy when findings break and you lose the piece? A local artisan told me he spends extra to put secure clasps on. The pieces from the factory are not secure. If a piece is expensive and fine jewelry, I go to a local store and pay for better findings. My fashion jewelry clasps also break. The trash container is the solution. It annoys me a lot.
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perfect1
fixing clasps is really easy, you just need needle nose pliers.
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return of parakeet
A silver necklace I bought at a yard sale. Strangely, it never tarnishes, and when I put it on, it spins around my neck a few times and then tries to strangle me.
