Dead in the Water

As I am waiting for my next sterling wire order to arrive, I am spinning my wheels in my studio.  

I had this idea on Friday, and made a sketch at work.

This is supposed to be a necklace.  Some of the links are made of sterling wire that I will fuse.  Some of them are these great new beads I bought - they are ceramic beads dipped in sterling silver.  Hand made in Mykonos.  Very shiny.

I have the heavy gauge wire that will make the fused links, so I began that work on Saturday afternoon.

I started by making these loops of different sizes, filing the ends so they would fit together nicely.  As I began building the design, I discovered that I needed to simplify it a bit, so I didn't make as many links as I had drawn.

This is the simplified design.

I find it makes things easier if I take a picture to remind myself what I had planned on doing.  

Here are the fused rings, filed and positioned.  Just waiting now, for the finer gauge wire to show up so I can finish this...

In the meantime,

These are also on my work surface, awaiting wire or my attention, or both.

The cloud is sterling, and I definitely want to wait for the sterling wire to finish it.

The pearl/crystal/peachy chalcedony piece, however, is wired with silver plated wire.  I have bunches of that.  

This piece was just happy serendipity.   The "curls" were mistakes - sometimes the wire curls up on itself instead of fusing.  I'm getting better at using a torch, but I still make mistakes.  However, when the three curls were placed together and fused, no mistakes were made and this cloud shape emerged.  

I will wait for the sterling wire to finish this piece, too.