Restock at Craft Ontario Shop

I’m happy to say that I dropped off some work with the Craft Ontario Shop recently, so if you’re browsing, spot my work :). Selection of what you can find there below.

You can find this luscious selection of M clutch pins (sterling silver and needled felt)

This T bar M pendant with hand-knotted jadeite beads, two-colour silk, sterling silver and needled felt

I’ve made a new version of my Asymmetric M earrings (sterling silver/needled felt). These are a bit shorter than the original model at about 2 inches long, with a corresponding slightly smaller hollow forms to have a similar look to the original, longer model.

I don’t want to give everything away, so if you’re going by the shop, pop in and have a look at what else is there!

Is it a spoon, or is it a ring??

This week I thought I’d tell you a story about a piece I’m working on for my mom. It’s a nostalgia thing. It’s part of a common trend of using cutlery for jewellery, so it’s not particularly original, but it is a nice story, and I’ve been playing with AI photo processing again.

This sterling silver teaspoon (or, if you’re my mom, it’s a demitasse spoon) is one of half a dozen that was a wedding gift when my parents got married. Mom swears that this particular spoon is exactly the one she used to use to feed me, and then some time later, my brother. So, she decided since we don’t really use them IRL, that she thought it would be great to have a ring. She saw a video somewhere of what she wanted, so, armed with my orders, I made a start.

So, I decided it was a fun idea and wanted one for myself. I flattened the bowl and I reshaped it, I thought it was a bit too big over my finger and then I started bending it. It’s not finished yet, and the other one won’t quite look like this - my mom has a bigger ring size than me, and she wanted a particular design. But I think it will serve it’s purpose - it will provoke memory in both of us every time we look at them! I’ll share a pic when they’re properly finished.

Major necklace

Almost a year ago, I told you about an art collaboration that I did. Along witht that, I made some jewellery pieces incorporating quilted and embroidered panels in silver frames that I call my “Portholes on Immunity”. A series of four brooches, a pendant and a large 5 panel necklace, these mostly (but not entirely) are an homage to different cell types of the immune system. When I was thinking about making this series, I was reminded of various sci-fi films where you see people shrunk into miniature, along with their little submarine, journeying through the blood. So, these are how I imagine cells would look from the porthole window on a teeny tiny vessel in the blood.

Sterling silver frames the embroidered panels. The panels are little quilts with a base of oakshott cotton, using trapunto to emphasize some areas of the panel, and quilted using mainly embroidery techniques.

Left - Right: monocyte/macrophage, T cell, extravasation in blood vessels, B cell, granulocyte

Legend: quilt = 3 layer sandwich secured with stitching; Trapunto = a technique where you use added batting to highlight or give further dimension in quilting; oakshott cotton= fabric that has different colour threads in the warp and weft.

Interested in knowing more? Drop me a line, and let’s talk!

Restock coming soon!

It’s always difficult facing the end of summer…..to be honest, there are only a few things that I really enjoy about summer, I love the lake, hanging out a bit with friends who always seem to be a bit more available, enjoying not wearing heavy clothes…..but fall is really my favourite season, and I’m finding myself longing for that first evening when I suddently have that feel that the weather has turned. Sadly, I also am not that keen on winter, but I somehow forget that in the beauty of the fall colours. Of course, that means that I’m kind of starting to think ahead to the holiday season, especially when I start getting requests to provide work! So, I’m busy fabricating away at the studio to get new work to Craft Ontario for the shop (down on Queen Street). Stay tuned to see a new modification of an existing design new this season!

New hollow forms waiting to be - I broke two saw blades and sawed 3 different fingers piercing these shapes!! (Don’t worry, no blood was shed on metal :)

Stay tuned to see the final pieces! And hey! If you want to suggest a favourite colour, drop me a line and let me know!

Something’s Still Cooking

I started last week telling you about a new project I was working on. I’ve made a bit of progress on it, and I’m still working on custom work I can’t really show yet, so I thought I’d share a bit more about this project with you.

These guys have progressed a little - I’ve cleaned them up and done a preliminary polish on them - you can see that they’re slightly domed much better now. Normally I’d add a backplate so I could stuff some colourful felt in those cutouts, but not this time! They’re going to have colour, but I’m going to use glass enamel instead! Haven’t quite decided what colours, but the biggest one will definitely be blue!

Make it stand out

So, I’ve made a start on the second metal elements I’m going to use - these will eventually be some of what I call my “L units”, inspired by lymphocytes, the “smart cells” of the immune system. When they’re in their nascent or naive state, lymphocytes are almost all nucleus with very little cytoplasm. So, I like to texture the surface of the discs before I dome them, and then attach them to a backplate. For this project, I won’t use all the units here, but I like to make extras so I can do other things with them (economies of scale!). I also decided that I wanted to use several different sizes, to go along with the variation in size I used for the “M” units.

Have I piqued your interest yet? Watch this space to see how things progress further!

Something’s Cooking!

I’ve been doing alot of custom work recently, so this week I’ve been working on something for myself. I collected some bits and bobs ages ago, and they’ve been sitting in a bag, along with my half-baked design for what to do with them. So, I made a start. The design is still pretty half-baked, but it’s moving in a good direction! Next up, some enameling, I think. Any suggestions for colours?

I’ll post some more pictures when I’m finished, but as with my ongoing obsession with the immune system, it’s all about cells of the immune system (with some pearls thrown in for good measure!).

Remodeled Jewellery Part II

Awhile ago, I shared a ring that I made using all the stones from this brooch

So, we were left with the carcass of the original brooch, which is a lovely shape, and beautifully constructed. The client doesn’t really like yellow gold, and it now had a gap where the stone and setting had been, so we did a little updating on it, by choosing a new stone for it, and giving it a rhodium makeover to change it to a lovely white surface instead. What a difference these two things made to the overall look of the brooch!

What do you think?

New Ring - Help me name it!

So, I can’t remember if I posted anything about this one, but I’ve finished (finally!) a new ring. It’s super fancy in 14kt rose gold with a star sapphire and a lab created diamond. It’s embellished with some tiny new elements I’m starting to use in a new series of jewellery, modelled after red blood cells. They’re sculpted, and put together to give the impression of flow and subtle differences in shape, but still with that characteristic “donut” look to them.

I love the hexagonal shape of the sapphire, even though the star is not very discernible with ths kind of cut, and I think it looks amazing with the colour of the rose gold!

I envisioned it as my interpretation of a “Toi et Moi” ring (which seem to be pretty popular at the minute, and is usually two stones together to represent you and your partner), so it could be worn as an unconventional engagement ring (and there’s cleverly space for a wedding band to snug up against it from either side!). However, it doesn’t have to be an engagement ring, I just hope it will eventually go to someone who loves it as much as I do!

Here’s how it looks on my finger - don’t you want to see it gracing yours?? ;)

I made it with a created diamond, rather than a natural one. Apart from the price difference, created diamonds don’t have the same ethical issues, and so I’ve decided that, as a goldsmith, the work I make for my own personal designs are going to be made with re-claimed diamonds or from lab created diamonds. The interesting thing about lab created diamonds is that because of the process that is used, you still get different grades of stones, so the “C’s” (cut, clarity, carat, colour) still apply!

So, I like to give everything names, but I haven’t quite landed on one for this ring, yet—any snappy ideas come to mind? Hit the button below, and let me know!! Or, if you just want to tell me how much you love this ring, that would be awesome too!!

New Rings are almost here!

Stacking Pearl Rings

I’m a bit obsessed with stacking rings - I think it relates to my love of all things Wendy Ramshaw (I’ve written about here before, you can follow the link to find out more about this iconic British woman goldsmith). This is my latest iteration of elegant stacking rings in sterling silver - with pearl. You can see some of these in person at the Craft Ontario Shop, but I’ve been working on some new ones that are coming to Jewel Envy soon!

In the spirit of waste not, want not, I use the cutouts from my M cells to form the pearl cups on the rings, so I like to think of them as my “nuclei rings” :). It’s a little secret story that you don’t know about unless you know about it! Yes, it makes my little geeky science heart happy! And each one is different from the next one!

Old jewellery, new jewellery

I’ve been hard at work doing a number of custom pieces, which I can’t really share at the moment, as they’re not completed yet, but I did complete a couple of pieces recently that I wanted to share with you. It’s fun when a client brings me their old jewellery that they want to reimagine into new pieces.

Re-imaging jewellery you have is a good way to retain materials, but give them a new lease on life! I feel so happy to be involved in helping to remodel so many meaningful pieces!

I removed the central stone from the ring, and made it into a new bezel set floating pendant in 14k white gold. It looks stunning! The rest of the stones will go to be used in other pieces, and the gold was recycled in another piece as well!

Here, I removed the side stones (so the central stone can be used somewhere else!), and remade them into these sweet, delicate earrings, also in 14k white gold. The gold from the ring was reclaimed.

So, do you have any jewellery lurking around that you want to give a new lease on life ? Get in contact and let’s start a dialogue about remodeling your jewellery—all quotes are no-obligation and free!

Happy Sunday!

-Robin.