Designing with Stones and More
with Barbara Kay Jewelry

​
Welcome to my newsletter! This issue includes a discussion on designing with stones, and a bit on safety in the studio. I will return to a Featured Stone in the next newsletter as well as some tips for using the jeweler's saw.

Barbara Kay Jewelry News

I hope you are all surviving the cold of winter. I've had a hard time getting my basement studio warm enough for my fingers to work properly, and haven't created a lot. Now that things are thawing out here in southwest Washington, I hope to work on a few things that I started a couple of weeks ago. Pictures will hopefully be ready for the next newsletter!

---

Designing with stones

A reader asked me to write about how I incorporate stones into my jewelry to achieve certain effects. Most of my pendants, as well as cuffs and some earrings, include one or more cabochons. I have basically two methods of designing around those cabs.

Design method #1: The design comes first; the stone comes later. I have a lot of design ideas that come to me when I’m out in nature, or sometimes when I see other jewelry, in particular vintage and antique jewelry. TV shows and movies – especially period shows – can offer wonderful jewelry inspiration! My sketches are done without a specific stone in mind. If I decide to use one of them, I have to either find a stone in my cabochon collection or buy one that will fit.

Often my nature designs include a sun or a moon. Round sunstones and moonstones are the obvious choices here, but sometimes other stones can have the same effect – or can be chosen to create a different effect. For the bar necklace on the left that features the moon phases, I decided on a chalcedony rather than moonstone. Chalcedonies often have an amazing glow, and almost more of a mysterious “moon” appearance than moonstones.

For the pendant on the right, which was made a while ago, I decided on a larimar cabochon for the moon with the idea of “once in a blue moon” being something kind of special. I also liked that the patterns on the larimar looked a bit like the shadow and light of the moon’s craters.

Occasionally, I like to use a sparkly faceted stone, like this golden citrine, for a bit of bling. When I use faceted gemstones, I almost always begin with a sketch and then pick out the gemstones to fit the design. In this case, I had some clouds that had been cut from the back of another pendant. I played around with them to create the design (rather than sketching), and then added the little gemstone.

Design method #2: The stone creates the design. Most of my designs actually begin with a cabochon, usually a one-of-a-kind cab cut by one of the lapidary artists I know. In this designing process, the stone itself lets me know what the design should be. Size, shape, patterns on the stone and sometimes color all contribute to my ideas.

A large stone cannot have too much added around it or the pendant will be too big for most people. But I do like adding something of myself rather than simply setting the stone. With a big stone, I keep the additions simple but still use the stone as my guide. I am just starting to work on this one. This beautiful agate has druzy pockets that glitter as it moves, which inspired my idea of soldering on little silver balls of various sizes above the stone to mimic the druzy. This may change slightly as I get going (my designs often do).

​

I love working with stones that are not symmetrical. But I like making the pendant outline symmetrical. Creating a symmetrical back drop around an unsymmetrical stone gives me space to create my own additions. I also love stones that have patterns. Human beings tend to create pictures out of patterns; the pictures I see in patterned stones are what I use to create the designs around the stones. Often I'll extend the picture I see from the stone into the backplate, such as this one (already sold).

​

This graveyard point plume agate pattern looked like bolts of lightning streaking through clouds. I knew that had to be part of the design. This is a very symmetrical stone. I decided instead of leaving backplate all around the stone, to cut it close to the stone on the sides and add the clouds at the top. I also left enough backplate at the bottom to allow me to hang dangling lightning bolts. Although I generally like symmetrical pendant outlines, I don't like the design to be totally symmetrical, so I made the clouds look different on both sides, and all of the lightning bolts are a bit different as well.

​

Shape of the stone can also inspire my ideas. This pretty lapis lazuli cabochon was cut into a shape that looked like a flame. I went with that idea and soldered hammered silver flames next to the big blue flame. This pendant - and in particular the blue flame of the stone, also inspired a story that you can read in my blog: Peace Flame. This pendant was made quite a while ago and is sold.

​

​

​

The last aspect of the cabochon that sometimes helps me design is color. One example is this sweet phosphiderite cabochon. Its soft slightly mauve pink put me in mind of spring and in particular of spring flowers. I decided on a bouquet of both soldered and riveted three dimensional flowers to crown the stone, and to hopefully give that feeling of spring and burgeoning life.

​

Finally, there are occasions when I use a combination of both Method #1 and Method #2 to design a pendant. This past fall, I was inspired by the many mushrooms that popped up everywhere. My idea was to use a cabochon as the mushroom cap and design from there, although I didn't have a specific cabochon in mind. I had to go through my cabochon collection to find stones that had the right shape, size and to a certain extent colors. Once I had a few cabs, I sketched around them to finish up my designs.

Here are a couple of the finished pendants:

---

Metalsmithing Tips: Safety in the Studio

Did you know that metal can make you sick? Handling it won't cause problems, but breathing in heated metal fumes and metal dust can. This is particularly true with copper, as well as copper alloys like brass, bronze, and to a lesser extent sterling silver. I learned this through personal experience.

I had been asked to create a very large bronze cuff. Doing this required a LOT of annealing (heating the metal to soften it) as the piece of bronze was both thick and large. I spent a long time and a lot of flame trying to get the piece annealed. I was not successful; I realized that to do it I would need either a torch with a hotter flame (one that used oxygen as well as acetylene) or two torches at the same time. The day after doing this, I developed a fever. This was pre-Covid, so I thought I was coming down with the flu, but I had no other symptoms. The fever (with the accompanying muscle aches and chills) lasted about three days.

Because I was not sick in any other way, I started researching acetylene fumes. Although I have an exhaust fan above my soldering station, I thought the lengthy use of the torch probably created fumes that couldn't all escape. Nothing in my research indicated that acetylene fumes would cause a fever, but the research led me to metal sickness. Copper fumes - and dust - can cause fever, muscle aches, and all of those general not-feel-good symptoms. I am now much more careful and aware as I work with metal and heat - and also when I cause metal dust to fly.

For your safety when you work with metal, especially copper containing metals:

• Be sure to have ventilation where you solder! If you are soldering small items with a butane torch, opening a window may be enough. When you begin using more heat with larger pieces, add an exhaust fan or other method of ventilation.
• Don't overheat the metal; keep the amount of time you have the flame on the metal as short as you can.
• If you have to spend a lot of time with heat on the metal, consider investing in some kind of respirator that blocks fumes. I don't use one, but I now keep my heating time short.
• When you use a rotary tool (Dremel or flex shaft) to sand or file, wear an N95 mask. Hand sanding and filing does not require a mask as the metal dust falls straight down. The rotary tool throws the dust into the air.

Here are a few other safety tips to remember in your workspace:

• Wear safety glasses at all times
• Use ear protection when you do a lot of hammering; the sharp noise of hammer on metal is hard on the ear drums
• When you begin soldering, be sure to have a fire extinguisher near by; check that it is full periodically
• Keep long hair tied back; avoid wearing dangling things that could get caught in a rotary tool, and wear closed toed shoes
• Wear a mask any time you use your rotary tool both because of metal dust and also dust from whatever attachment you are using (polishing wheel, silicone wheel, etc.)

There is more information about safety - and of course much much more - in my Beginning Metalsmithing course. Find out more and enroll here: Learn Metalsmithing with Barbara Kay Jewelry​

---

I would love to hear from you. Let me know what you think, and what you’d like to see in future newsletters.