Definitely hand-made, all the way!

I can't remember whether I mentioned that my friend, Bob Hale (with whom I share a "rocky" relationship) recently sent me a care package with five wonderful cabachons for wrapping. I promise I will show you all these as I get them wrapped, but in the meantime I have to practice more with wrapping very smooth, sometimes asymmetrical stones to be able to do justice to the ones he sent.

A couple of years ago Tom and I discovered a place in New Mexico where the jasper stones are prevalent, particularly red and yellow jasper. We collected them, hauled a box of them home and I tumbled and polished them. I have chosen a few of them to work with for simple pendants. This one has some red jasper inclusions in the yellow jasper base. It is a very smooth result from the tumbling and polishing and I liked just holding it in my hand! It is about 2-inches long and had no rough edges at all to start my wrap. But, I found that by using half-round brass wire that I was able to get the basic wraps done for security and form the bail and then twist the "tails" together to form the simple swirl for accent. I don't want to overdo the wrapping on these as I want the stones to speak for themselves, as I think this one does.

PS...To my friend, Woodie, who recently challenged (he may prefer the term "inspired") me to do something more artisinal than just buying stone pieces and beads and then wrapping them, here you go! Can't get much more hand-wrought than rock-hounding the stone, tumbling and polishing it, then hand-wrapping it. I will give credit to God for the raw stone itself as I had nothing to do with that part, but from there on it is all mine!

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