Hey guys, I think we can all agree I’ve been doing a lot of philosophy lately, so I thought I’d change it up with this post. Well, a lot of you don’t know this, but a long time ago I won a State Championship in Classical Jewelry for High School, with a box weave/Byzantine weave hybrid chain-mail and black Swarovski pendant necklace and bracelet set. Since then, I have never touched another jump ring in my life (I remember why now, after this last work, I have blisters in all of my fingers).
I decided this summer to get back into the fray, not for profit, but I would have to lose the skill set. This is what came out:
The bracelet itself, modeled on me own hand
It’s a full on Byzantine weave with bronze and anodized aluminum (the red links). I just wanted something plain, simple, but with a slight bit of flair, which is why I stuck those red links in there. The process is not hard, but it’s tremendously repetitive. In that sense, it’s great because it teaches you extreme passion, or, in the very likely case that you make a mistake, the fact that anger does not solve anything. As I said, though, it does make your fingers blister. Working with goldfill back in the day was a little easier, but the 16 ga bronze kicked my butt to be sure. On top of it, I lost one of my pliers (my parents decided to help themselves to it, I’m sure), so I had to use this old non-jewelers pliers, so I had to be extra-careful about not scratching the links, especially the aluminum, because that takes the coloring right off.
As you’ll notice in this next picture, I had to pull a fast one when I finished the whole thing, because the clasp I bought for it was too small for the rings (if you know how the toggle clasp works, you the ring of the clasp to be larger than the rings you’re weaving, well, I didn’t do the math right…), so I had to warp one of the end rings. I might warp the one at the other and too, for the sake of symmetry.
The whole nine yards (not literally)
So, Socrates wrote poetry before his death, I made a bracelet. Hopefully this does not mean I will die soon, but my father does have plans to redecorate some of the house today, which might be the death of me. Hopefully not. In any case, I thought I’d drop this post before I die.
I will bring this blog into its purpose tomorrow with any luck, I have a half-finished post that I’m trying to finish up, titled “We’ve Lost the Ent-wives” or something like that, but I’m not telling what it’s about. Other than that, Happy Weekend people. Blisters in hands suck, but all you weight-lifters out there already know that (if you’re surprised that weight-lifters read my blog, I’ll have you know that the World Weight-Lifting Federation is my official sponsor and that the vast majority of my daily views come from weight-lifters, true story). I should have probably slept a lot more last night. Oh well. Alright, bye now.
Modern Platonist 