New Business is Born

Wire wrapping is one of the oldest forms of jewelry making known. In the winter of 2008-2009 my husband and I started planning our vacation for the spring. I so wanted to do something different this year and so it was decided that we would do a multistop camping trip going as far as North Carolina this year. So I started researching things to do along the coast and in the mountains. We love both so thought we could go either way. Our oldest son live just outside of Durham so we thought it would be nice to end up in that area. After seeing a show on TV about mining in NC I thought what FUN! My dear husband's thought on the idea was - BORING! But he went along and we had so much fun that we could have stayed all day. We went to Emerald Hollow Mine which was one of the mines highlighted on National Geographic and Discovery Channel. We came away from the sluiceway so excited with what we had found. My goal was to find a ruby, which we did and decided to have it cut into a cabachon. They do lapidary there at the mine so we left it and had it about 6 weeks later. What started out as an ugly, my thought, average rock came back looking beautiful. Now I have a lovely natural untreated ruby. I wanted to set it myself and initially thought about the new silver clay as a way to set it. During my forays on the internet I found wire wrapping and thought - I can do that! - or so I thought. It has been almost 8 months and the ruby has been set in it's first setting and will be finallized after the holidays.

I decided that jumping right into the whole process was way beyond me until I got more information, so off I went to the internet where you can find anything. I am the type to research something to death before I finally start on a project. I wanted to play, but sterling silver is just to expensive to waste so after reading 100's of posts on Wire Wrapped Jewelry a Yahoo group I found in my searching phase, I decided to go with copper wire. One of the posts suggested that I go to Home Depot and buy wire by the foot to play with. I wanted some stones to wrap and knew I could find them at our annual rock swap here in Gilsum, NH. So off we went, I have lived here for 15 years now and had never been as all I could imagine was a bunch of rocks that would have no interest to me. Truly amazed was my first reaction to what I saw that day and it only made me want to keep trying. I picked up a couple of polished stones for pennies and you can bet next year I will be looking at the trays and trays of cabachons that are avaiable. One vendor alone had to have thousands of stones, a jewelers paradise to say the least.

Well my first try was, shall we say, pathetic at best. Now you have to realized that I am not one to practice without having good results the first time and every time. I hate learning curves and it frustrates me to no end when I don't get it right the first time. My birthday rolled around in July and I had asked for money to buy wire and tools. Off I went and stretched it as far as I possibly could. I kept at it because I so wanted to set that ruby myself.

I printed off a couple of tutorials, but there is no way I can follow a pattern or directions without changing something to make it my own. I have to say that it did teach me a lot about making the bails and clasps on necklaces and earwires on earrings. The one thing that amazed me was the amount of wire that is used when you want to incorporate a lot of swirls around the stone. The last necklace I made was a triangular amethyst which has 48" of 22ga sterling silver wire around it. Yes, I have graduated to silver wire. I am having fun and love doing it. I am sure I will be learning for a long time to come.