(no subject)

[camwyn]

There was a strand of very pretty tourmalines in Bead and Fiber yesterday, so I thought I'd go for the embellished version of the necklace I did with tiger eyes. Slight problem: hole size. Not all the stones had holes drilled large enough to allow threading on the 18 gauge wire. The heishi spacer stones I tried to thread onto the 22-gauge decorative wire tended towards very tiny holes indeed. Future use of the remaining spacers (I got them as part of a 'pay us $3 and we'll send you a bunch of stone beads selected at random' deal) will probably involve 24 or 26 gauge wire instead.


I will probably be working on earrings next. The Perforated-American fellow who re-pierced my ears about seven weeks ago said he'd be happy to switch out the earrings I went home with after six weeks, but I had to either get approved jewelry from him or else bring him earrings with implant-grade metal posts or wires. He doesn't want to be blamed if something goes wrong with potentially reactive metal, which I think is a very sound approach to take- anyway, I managed to get a couple of niobium earwires, since I didn't feel like looking for the specific steel alloys he said qualified as implant-grade. And titanium, which is also acceptable, is harder to come by (at least if you order from the catalogs I do). I can now make myself a pair; I'll see if I can work up something decent with my sea glass, and another pair with faceted beads, and then use the remaining ear wires to make earrings for sale.