I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t love autumn. Crisp weather, penetrating blue skies one day, comforting gray the next. Brilliant warm colors, the crunch of leaves under your feet…
Sometimes the leaves are brilliant orange, swirling gently in the stiff November breeze.
Other times a more muted brown appears- dying grasses contrast against the dark wet wood, now bare. Pumpkins dot porches and yards, brilliant crimson-orange,
This is a photo of beautiful Agawa Bay, Ontario:
Do you see that pink beach? It’s not sand. It’s thousands upon millions of rocks- pink and gray granite that has been pounded smooth by the force of Lake Superior. The rocky beach shoreline stretches for miles- rock after rock after rock. And not one of those rocks is worth much.
Our earth is covered in rocks- we cut it out of the ground and shape it and use to build and sculpt and decorate and even worship. We cut stone away to reveal oil, we pile it on the edges of our yards for property boundaries, we pave our driveways with it and let our cars leak oil onto it. Rocks don& ...
How to tell if you’ve been in the jewelry business too long:
1) You think of months in birthstones, always: “September 15th, huh? Sapphire… oh, you meant for dental appointment.”
2) You automatically assess other peoples’ jewelry- everywhere you may go: “I’ll have the chicken sandwich with mustard, please. Oh, and you have a missing diamond on your anniversary band. Yup, right down there on the side.”
3) You automatically evaluate other peoples’ jewelry, without meaning to: “Hmm, driving a Lexus but wearing CZs, huh? Mortgage payments mus ...
Part I of this series here.
Part II of this series here.
For more photos of this process, visit our flickr photostream!
Quick review- here’s what we started with:
And here’s what we’re going for:
How we get from point A to point B has been detailed fo ...
Remember this?
Part I of this series can be found here.
Part III of this series can be found here.
The molds that we left in the steam de-waxer have lost more than 90% of their wax. They are now ready to enter the next phase of casting! Here is the de-waxing machine:
Not very impressive by itself. Here is the inside, after a de-waxing. Note t ...
This ring was born in our store this past month. It isn’t just a simple process of scraping a chunk of silver off a block and gluing a gemstone down inside. It takes just a bit more work (and equipment!) than that…
Here you can observe- in painstaking detail- the conception, gestation, and final delivery of a custom designed ring from Wexford Jewelers.
It all begins with a wax model. This is extruded sheet wax that has been bent into the primary form, cut to shape, cut to size, and ...
Late 1997
Michael and I suddenly find ourselves with two months to throw a respectable wedding together. Not a shotgun wedding, just a rush due to business needs & living situation circumstances. I’m working at the store one day and the mother of my sister’s boyfriend whirls in. I’ll have to introduce you here to Judy Nichols, choir and chorale director at our local high school, piano player at our church, general musical angel at large. She always has a kind word for everyone around her, a quick laugh, and a beaming smile on her face. I mention to her that I would be honored to have her play at my wedding, and s ...
“Just make me something pretty.”
The elderly lady was one of my spunkiest customers to date. Her eyes sparkled with dry wit, and her touch on my hand was kindly.
“What kind of pretty?” I asked, laughing, “Swirly pretty? Floral pretty?”
She shrugged and grinned at me,
“You’ll do fine. I know I’ll love it.”
Rarely do clients put their complete faith in my design capability. Most people have an idea, a thought or a stone for a basis, or at least a size reference. I appreciated her confidence in me, but felt completely at sea at to where to start.
A f ...
It was winter and the snow fell thick and silent around the store. We were up to our ears in custom work, but never too busy to turn away one more.
A woman came to us with a pile of scrap gold and a sapphire. She wanted a ring made for her daughter, a nurse here in Cadillac. Because of the physical demands of nursing, a high setting or multiple prongs can be very obstructive and even dangerous to patients. Our challenge was to build it securely, while making sure that there was nothing to catch, snag, scratch, or tear. The ring also had to be built heavy to withstand daily wear and tear.
We melted down her gold, added fresh, and set the ...
What does one do, exactly, when one has multiple stones to put into a design? When you have sapphires, diamonds, and an errant garnet? What about when you have several stones larger than the rest?
Well, if you’re obsessive compulsive about math, your brain sorts the stones out into a pattern. If the number of stones happens to be easily divisible by four, you have a square just begging to be carved!
The garnet that belonged to the customer wound up being too abraded to use, so we found a lovely cropped-corner square to fit in the center, and this entire necklace just came together with ease and grace.
Pardon us if we̵ ...
