Category Archives: Ruthie’s Own Pieces

Peruvian Blue Chalcedony Sterling Silver Smokestack Ring

For a while now, I’ve had a design for a ring in my head. In part inspired by the power station we drive past a few times a week; and in part inspired by castles and towers, minarets and mosques, factories and smokestacks – I seem to have quite an industrial/architectural theme running through my head lately.

The stones are Peruvian Blue Chalcedony Briolettes, which I turned on their ends. Divine colour, don’t you think?

I learned how to flange chenier, which was fun! The briolettes remind me of puffs of smoke.

I have some little pear shaped free-form orange carnelians in my gemstone stash, and I think there may be another ring in this style coming along in the future! What do you think?

Grey Moonstone Dome Lidded Ring

The culmination of our year’s worth of Silversmith training was a weekend session in which we were expected to create a complex piece which we had previously designed. We had to hand in a rendering, an art drawing, a technical drawing with notes and a set of procedural notes before creating the piece over the space of 15 hours.

I designed this dome lidded ring featuring a grey cat’s eye moonstone cabochon, which can be worn either with the lid on or off. I received a mark of 92.2% for this piece. I’m pleased with it!

Cuttlefish Casting and Seaglass Pendant

I finally finished making a pendant from the last piece of cuttlefish casting I had from our casting workshop earlier this year.

It’s a bit of a departure from my usual style, but the casting just seemed to need some softness with it!

My teacher gave me a couple of suggestions for how to finish it off – thanks Sue! I love the nature of silversmithing, there’s always some new way to look at things and something new to be learned!!

I’m keeping this piece for myself!

Sterling silver and titanium chenier hinge pendant set with blue quartz

The brief for our seventh project for the course I’m doing this year was to create a piece using chenier hinge as a feature rather than a function. (Chenier is hollow tubing, in case you weren’t sure!)

I designed this pendant so that it could be worn both horizontally and vertically. The six plates rotate around a centre rod. There were a few challenging moments to my usual sadly limited patience during the construction of this piece. Titanium is an interesting but hard metal to work with.. physically hard rather than mentally! It’s a dull grey colour, and very hard to cut, file and especially drill. The gorgeous colour is achieved by heating very carefully, so it has to be riveted on rather than soldered. I added the titanium mainly because I fell in love with the blue quartz bullet stones!!

Once in a while, my fellow students and I agree, you make something that has many challenging stages in it, and many learning experiences. By the end of the process you are pretty over it – so you pop the piece away for a while, and when eventually you bring it out once more, it usually is much more pleasing than you remember! This is one of these pieces! 🙂

Howlite Sterling Silver Ring

At last, a piece that I am going to keep for myself!!

The stone in this ring is howlite, which is most often seen dyed and passed off as turquoise. I just like it in its natural creamy white form!

Surprise, surprise, this ring is huge – the stone is four centimetres long. I like this ring, it’s really nice to wear, compliments most outfits, and it makes me feel happy!!

Sterling Silver Twisted Chain Bracelet

My grandmother commissioned me to make this sterling silver twisted chain bracelet after she saw the one I made for myself a while back. The links join together in a very precise pattern, so it was very zen to make! There is no catch, the bracelet simply rolls onto your wrist. It is very comfortable, and feels lovely rolling up and down your arm.

Each link is individually soldered, so the piece gets hot very quickly and you can only solder a couple of links at a time. It lived on my workbench, being made in between other things, for many weeks! Lucky Granny is patient..

Cylindrical Sterling Silver Box with Garnet Set Lid

Years ago, I made a little round silver box with a garnet on the top of it to keep embroidery needles in as due to a special project I was making, I suddenly had many of them. The joys of being able to make your own silver things!!

In this box I also keep a tiny note (which used to have my needle stuck in it when I had only one needle). It was written to me in green pencil by my son many years ago when he was quite small – it just says, in his best handwriting, “i love you”.

Nostalgia – Part One

I first started smithing in Canberra in 2005 when I did a short evening course in silver jewellery at Dickson College. The idea of being able to create ‘proper’ jewellery excited me, and I was really thrilled to start learning the processes involved in jewellery making! The first ring I ever made was using a moss agate cabochon – I learned metal bending and soldering, made the shank and the bezel, and set the stone. I was so thrilled!

I gave this ring to my mum. When I look back at it now, I can see plenty of flaws, but I also appreciate it as the starting point of what is proving to be a long and very happy journey!

She sells seashells…

Ok, so this piece is not for sale – but I did create it! This seashell is the physical component of my latest goldsmithing course project brief. Lots of wire bending and soldering made this an interesting and challenging piece to create.

It started life as a sketch from my mind, and went through some incarnations on paper, as a freehand art drawing:

Also as a technical drawing:

One of my very favourite creations!

Nemo’s Nautilus

In keeping with the nautical theme I seem to have going, a diving bell a la Jules Verne is another piece that I made. Ok, so it’s not really a diving bell. But close one eye and it could be!!

I created this pendant for the goldsmithing training course that I am presently undertaking. The brief was fairly simple – make something incorporating a hollow ball! Great fun.

the silver forge

jewellery handcrafted by ruthie gray