So sometime embarrassingly long ago a family member approached me about making a Christmas present for my Aunt. I was super excited about it but Christmas was far away and of course I procrastinated and fussed. I had lots of ideas, some of which I still hope to realise at a later date, but I struggled to come up with something I was sure she would like. I was lucky to be able to Facebook stalk them looking at any jewellery they might be wearing etc… In the end inspiration hit at my class, or at least I hit things with my favourite hammer. I love the texture it produces so much and I’ve gone as far as purchasing my own antique hammers to work on the grinder to see if I can get the same effect, or maybe better texture! (One can dream)
The design is essentially squares textured and lightly domed to give them shape, I chose 1.5mm silver so that they kept a substantial feel and didn’t loose to much depth to the texture, and thinner silver tends to warp with the hammer blows more. The earrings are studs and attaching posts to a flat surface can be annoying enough to secure a join, to a curved surface even more so!
Where it got really interesting was creating the necklace. The same design wouldn’t work here as I didn’t want a visible bail to attach the chain taking away from the simplicity and no-one wants four corners poking into their chest! Adding an untextured domed back was ideal, if created a smooth comfortable surface as well as a hallmarking spot, somewhere to thread the omega chain through and gave the whole thing a pleasing feel even to hold in your palm. It was a bit tricky creating the correct dome to fit the back especially as the square shape was altered already by the texture and I’m sure I could improve the speed of this process if I tried something similar again but with some careful attention with a hide hammer and lots of file work I was able to get all the corners to fit for soldering.
Final pictures have been added to the front page and the gallery.