This rough stone was called "Strawberry Rosetta Stone", I just call it yummy. As I looked at it, parts of the stone looked so much like a butterfly that I just had to create one. It's a pretty large unit and I have yet to decide just what the finished piece will look like. 

Druzy is quartz crystals on an agate base. One of the most desirable is blue lace druzy - so when I found a piece I just had to try my hand at cutting this stone. Cutting it is different in that nature has already given the top its shape and beauty. This fact also makes settting the stone somewhat more difficult as the bezel height needs to be custom shaped to the stone contour. 

The patterned circle of copper has a flush set black cubic zirconia set toward the center. This unit is then riveted to the bail of the pendent. I left this piece without a finish and one of these days I need to take a picture of it in its oxidized state - its even more gorgeous as the darkened copper makes the blue grey druzy that I cut really stand out.

This piece is interesting as the small circular jasper is bezel set, then riveted to the striped jasper. Then the two stone unit is epoxied ("chemically bonded" in jeweler's lingo) to the silver. The rivet has an off centered moon to continue the off centered look of the piece. I first cut the triangular striped jasper. I then found the brown jasper and cut the circular stone to complement the shape. As I like earrings that match pendents, then nothing must do but that I use the rest of the striped jasper to make matching earrings.

This is a necklace hand knit of brown artisan's wire. Artisan's wire has a copper core and is coated with a variety of colors or with silver or gold. The advantage of artisans wire is that the colored coating retains its original color and wears well.

The hand knitting is an interesting and labor intensive technique. At the rate of about an inch an hour, it takes about eighteen hours to make a 17 inch necklace with clasp. Generally I make a hand made clasp to finish these pieces, but I found this very interesting floral clasp to use.