Yaaayyyy!!

Grades are in; that means Spring semester is really, officially finished, and I am taking the summer off from school! Yaaayyyy!!

This semester wasn't really a project semester—at least not like I've usually had.  The cute blue dress I made in Draping was just because I wanted to make it cute; the teacher would have been satisfied with a muslin mock-up.  But I did have projects in my jewelry class so, like it or not, I'm posting pictures. (And, yeah, it's kind of pathetic photography.)

The first thing we did was make a band out of silver wire so we could learn how to use the acetylene torch and how to solder sterling silver. I was a duck with the torch—it scared me every time I lit it. Or maybe a duck would have done better than I did. But, with help, it turned out looking like a real ring/band.

Then we got to design another ring using wire. I learned how to set a little stone and everything!

Our third project was a "plate project." We used jeweler's saws and cut our designs out of a piece of silver plate. Then we soldered the cut piece to another plate, and then re-cut the areas that should go all the way through both pieces. So on this piece the black painted parts are the bottom plate and the rest of it is cut out and filed and polished.

Next up was a wax-cast ring.  We carved the ring out of special jewelry-making wax, cast it in molding material, and then cast it in silver.  But really all I did was carve the wax; the teacher did all the casting. Well, I did polish it
after it was all done.

Then, because my assigned projects were finished a little early, and I still had stuff to work with, I did another plate project. The top layer is copper, and the bottom layer is silver. I am the most proud of this one because I did all the cutting, filing, shaping and soldering all by myself! (The teacher helped a lot with the other projects.)

But here is the very best part of the whole semester:

 Straight A's again! (I was a little worried about the jewelry class because I mostly guessed on the final exam.)  I am very, very happy to report that my GPA is still tip-top! :-D