Discuss, design and deliver.
15th September 2017
Humans relate to the number 3 more than they do to any other number. Once you start thinking of how many times things happen in 3`s it will start to amaze you. We love to think of things in terms of a beginning, middle and end.
The trimesters of pregnancy. The three levels of education; primary, secondary and tertiary. In religion the occurrence of 3 is extensive. All humans regardless of their education or religion share the same journey of three steps; birth, life and death. As a jeweller I get to help people celebrate all three parts of that journey with the mementos I create.
My process of jewellery creation also has 3 basic steps; discuss, design and deliver.
Discuss
Recently to celebrate the passing of a husband and father I made three pieces of jewellery all using diamonds created from carbon extracted from the late man`s hair. A ring for the wife, a pendant for the son and ring for the daughter. Today I will share the daughter`s ring with you.
The daughter had always loved a family heirloom room. The old ring was pretty worn out and had also been damaged when it was removed from a finger by a doctor during an emergency.
Design
It was decided to leave the old ring as it was and make a totally new ring based on the heirloom ring.
Like the son, the daughter had a 2 mm round yellow diamond to use in her piece of jewellery. We would place it in the centre of the design. The other 4 white diamonds were slightly larger than 2mm and were from another piece of jewellery handed down in the family.
The remains of the millgrain edge.
When I restore/copy a design like this one I need to look at what is left in the old design to try and get an idea of it`s oringinal state. In the old ring you can see very faintly the millgraining on the outside edge.
The band had also been worn down with wear as it rubbed against a ring worn next to it at some stage. I would increase the width and thickness to give the ring as long a life as possible.
I would also do some general tidying up of the design and claw work :) The ring was much loved but a bit messy in it`s creation.
Deliver
18ct yellow and white gold were used to set these diamonds that mean so much to the family. I would like to thank this family for trusting me with these three very symbolic pieces.
