Wrapped in a bow
A fabricated ribbon ring, starting a crab and yellow sapphire pendant
One of the first ring designs I ever tried to make in my home studio was a simple knotted bow. I remember spending hours carving it in wax, then trying again in silver, and still not getting anywhere close to the clean shape I had in mind. Eventually I put the idea on hold, figuring I’d come back to it when I had a bit more experience.
This past week I finally did. In a satisfying sign of my progress, I was able to make this ring in only a few hours. I made it directly in 950 silver using two wires: a round one for the band and a thinner square wire for the bow.
The biggest developments in my skills that made this ring so much easier this time were:
Annealing. Heating the metal and quenching it makes it much softer and more cooperative, and it completely changes how cleanly you can shape a design like this.
Soldering. As I’ve written about before, soldering multiple components in stages only works if you switch solders based on their melting temperatures.
Super pleased to have finally made a ribbon ring that looks the way I first imagined it.
Crab and yellow sapphire pendant
A few months ago, I carved a tiny crab in wax and cast it in silver, planning to circle back one day and turn it into a pendant. This week felt like the right moment to pick it up again, especially as I’ve been wanting to keep pushing my stone-setting skills a little further. I decided to give the crab a small treasure to hold and set a 3.5mm yellow sapphire between its claws.
Creating such a tiny bezel seat was definitely a challenge. Working at that scale means every fraction of a millimeter matters. But with some careful rolling, plenty of annealing, and the help of a few pliers, the bezel finally came together.
Next week I’ll start soldering all the pendant components and then set the sapphire.