Pendant Twins

I have been busy in the “silver mines” again. I made not one, but two new pendants. I started one, and showed a picture of it to my friend Roberta, and she said she wanted one too. No problem; or so I thought. I thought, they are basically the same, just a different shape, it should be easy-peasy to make two instead of one. WRONG. Both pendants proved to be a lot more challenging than I expected. But through many trials and errors, they are both now completed. And if I do say so myself, I think they came our pretty nice too. I think all my hard work eventually paid off.

Both stones are Chinese turquoise. Part of the challenge in making these pendants was that they are irregular shaped stones, so that made making the bezels and ropes a bit tricky. I was working on both at the same time at first. I thought that would be easier. WRONG again! When I soldered the bezels together, I had no idea that there was a right way and a wrong way to attach them. No one told me that part. I found out the hard way. I soldered them both on backwards. My stones wouldn’t fit unless I put them in upside down, which defeated the purpose of having such pretty stones. So with the help of my instructors, we carefully removed the bezels by adding a lot of heat, making sure we did not burn them in the process. Once they were removed, I had to reshape them slightly, then flip them over. That worked. This time, both stones fit perfectly. From there, all I had to do was sand, polish, sand, polish and sand and polish again, set the stones and mold the bezels around the stones and polish once again. And now, they are both completed.

I finished mine last week and have been wearing it ever since. I just finished Roberta’s last night. I am sending it to her today. Hopefully she will receive it a few days, and she can proudly wear it soon as well. (The dog hair in the picture is a bonus. Dog hair is part of our normal attire here in our house). 🙂

I actually have something else I will be making with Chinese turquoise too, but you will have to wait awhile for that piece. 🙂

Chinese turquoise is a diverse, historically significant gem mined for over 2,000 years, primarily in Hubei province and areas like Ma’anshan and Xinjiang. Top-grade Chinese turquoise is characterized by a dark blue color with intricate, fine-veined spiderwebbing. It can range from light blue to deep green and yellow, often with a smooth, porcelain-like texture.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Sometimes things are harder than we like them to be and take more time than we expect, but in the end NEVER GIVE UP! The end results will definitely be worth the efforts. ‘Til next time.