Fiber Boot Camp - More silkiness from me!

Written by Patti Vanderbloemen for the Love My Art Jewelry Blog

I am still trudging along with this boot camp and spent lots of time on Pinterest and such, looking for inspiration.  I found tons of necklaces using silk, with a slider-style bail.  I have never made one of these bails before, so thought I thought I would try my hand at making one.  This technique involved setting a tube rivet.  While I have set commercially made rivets and/or tube rivets in the past, this time I tried cutting my own rivets from copper tubing and using tools I have on hand. 

I could not believe it worked!  I used a variety of dapping tools and the ball-peen end of my goldsmith hammer, as well as my embossing hammer to set the rivet.  I felt I was on a roll and if I did not repeat the process soon, I would forget how I did it, so I made a bunch.  The picture below is of the bails prior to adding a patina.

Still working with my stash of silk from Marsha (source), I selected a lovely lampwork focal from Susan Kennedy (source) and was so happy that the silk matched perfectly!

I am still playing around with PMC and recently made a batch of beads made from copper tubing to which I fired on some textured strips of silver clay.  Most of these beads had tiny little discs soldered to the top, but I left the tops off of a few of them for this very reason.

These copper tube beads are held in place by knotting this silk.

I knotted the silk to the simple copper clasp - which I soldered closed for strength.  Oh, the drape of the necklace is divine!  

I made a second, similar styled necklace, this time featuring a gorgeous lampwork flower bead by Donna Millard (source).

The two strands of silk blend so beautifully with the colors of Donna's lampwork.

This necklace is a bit longer than the first one (I STILL hate photographing necklaces).

In all honesty, I am not loving the two copper tube beads in this necklace and will probably be re-working this design.  The silk in this second necklace is a bit thinner than the silk in the first necklace - it's looking a bit chunky to me....but, you get the idea.

This fiber boot camp has been such a learning experience for me and taught me to "never say never". I NEVER thought I would be able to incorporate these silks amongst all of my heavy-metal jewelry...next thing you know, I will be working with seed beads...(NO...that I cannot do)!

This blog post was written by Patti Vanderbloemen for Love My Art Jewelry Blog.

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Texturing Metal......NOW WHAT???

Sooooooo, is everyone getting out those hammers and metal and pounding away?!

Since our Art Jewelry Boot Camp is currently focused on texturing metal by hand, perhaps you've been hammering away and have a nice little sampler of metal pieces that you're not quite sure what to do with......

So today, I wanted to share a little tidbit for a simple way to turn that textured metal into a simple slide bail for another pendant. Slide bails/pendants!

Slide bails/pendants are a popular trend in higher end jewelry and you could add some of these to a table at your show as they can easily slide onto a heavy omega style necklace (so ladies can buy a pendant and simply swap them on their own omega for a new look) or be added to ready made leather necklaces. OR....you can incorporate them by adding punches of color by adding them to beautiful silks and fibers or a more involved pieces.

I started with a copper stamping that was very large (about 3+" across)  and probably wouldn't serve well as a pendant. But you could use squares, circles, ovals or any other symmetrical pieces you've been texturing to make a slightly different shape.  The original shape is above.

I snipped off the side rounded bits with a pair of french shears and filed the sides nice and straight and then annealed the piece to make it nice and soft so it would be ready to receive that nice texture we've been talking about..... Next, I textured the piece by using my grungy pitted hammer followed by a piece of bent steel wire that I mentioned at the intro to our challenge.

My piece was quite work hardened by this point so I annealed it again with my torch, cleaned it very well, then folded it around a 1/4" dowel rod to form the bail portion....(this was the point where I wish I owned a pair of bail pliers or wrap and tap pliers).....but a wooden dowel worked fine too! I then used a pair of chain nose pliers to bend the bottom rounded bits out a bit so it met in a friendlier manner.

At this point, I drilled my hole by using a center punch and drilling through both pieces at the same time so the holes would meet. I did all my finish work with my emery papers, cleaned, oxidized, distressed, and waxed and you have this:

A fun bail to add on a bit of silk or a slide pendant! Add your favorite Art Bead or pendant and you are set to go!


One word of caution: Don't forget to seal the INSIDE of the bail (I do this by  passing a Qtip coated in wax or a cuticle stick wrapped with some muslin or cotton ball and wax through the opening so it is finished inside and out) You don't want any oxidation to rub off on leathers or fibers....