playing around with design ideas

i am headed in a tangent, but i'm very happy with some of the things i've made today. i'm nearly finished on a pair of bracelets of a very minimal design, and those have lead me to a necklace i'd like to finish tomorrow. since i'm at it, i'll probably do a few earrings as well and finish the set.

lots of pieces are on hold awaiting more materials. it will be exciting to see the array of them when i finally get them all assembled and polished.

i really need to deepen my study of metallurgy; i find myself wondering about the alloy of the solder i am using. i would like to solder entirely in gold. there is something very intriguing to me about privileging the usually concealed seams in my fabrication. as jewelers, we spend so much effort scraping, filing and sanding away excess solder. i think i would like to move in the other direction, toward even larger, luxuriant solder seams in gold. i don't know enough about gold to know which karat would be the best for this task, or whether or not i could make my own solder alloy out of scrap.

this blog may or may not continue, but for the time being it is feeling useful to sit down and organize my thinking with regard to my making.