As Promised

So, here are the things I've sewn, in chronological order. The color in the pictures is a little off. Some of the purples look more blueberry than a blue hued purple:
This shirt was made before December I think. Had bought the simple striped pattern. Cotton knit, not very stretchy.

This next one was sometime late winter but before I went home in April. Stretch knit, usually a cotton polyester blend (all following pieces are made of the same material):

Went a long time not doing anything. All of a sudden a sewing bug hit me over the head and knocked out these following 4 in the past 2 weeks. I did each during the evening. Some were fairly quick for me, about 4-5 hours. It probably would take a more experienced person no time at all. The last most recent top I struggled with trying a neckline that didn't work. Kept sewing and ripping out, ended up staying up way later than I wanted to:

(Particularly proud of the above dress. Can't see but it goes just past the knee.)

Cannot Believe How Long It's Been

So, I'm really sorry for not posting anything in months. Unfortunately I do not have pictures of everything I've been making, although some of the pictures I do have were taken by a co-worker for the school's website. Yeh, they finally put up a student gallery. Anywho, to begin!
School director Dee wanted me to make some Valentine's themed jewelry, in my opinion waaaaay too late, but whatever, do what the lady says. I came up with this little earrings set:

Based off of that another friend of mine made a bunch of pairs of earrings similar to this. Now, I don't have pictures, which sucks, but anyway I took this design and made a bunch of copper wire pendents some with little dangles hanging from the upper bow of the heart. Those were also fast and easy to make. Also made the copper chain that went with. This piece was a little more time consuming and I never made the chain to go with it:

This one is copper inlaid in silver inlaid in copper. Torched the copper to get my colors.

Next, Dee had me trying to come up with a line of jewelry, leaning more towards earrings. And something that could be pumped out fast. I got seriously inspired by the idea of labyrinths. I googled images. One of which was more of a celtic knot and really easy to make:

I made about 5 pairs of these in 4 hours.
Then I decided I really wanted to do the piercing work for the labyrinth earrings. Each pair took about 7-8 hours:

Decided to branch out to more than just earrings:

The pendent has a fire opal set into it. The ring for the moment doesn't have any stone set, but I could add later. I don't have a picture but I also made a set of earrings with the same pattern and style as the ring, layering the pierced metal over a base and then antiquing the base layer while polishing the top.
Next labyrinth pendent that was fun to make was this one:

For this one I had tried to cut out silver to inlay into the copper. It ended up failing so I just took the copper and soldered it on top of a layer of silver. I sent it through the press to flatten it out a bit. Torched the copper for those awesome colors, textured the silver and also made the copper chain.
In between some of this work I did some other things. Worked on this ring:

Once I got on the making of copper chain for the copper wire heart pendents, I ended up making chain for this guy which I made a while back. I also gave it a little bit of a makeover, polishing the top and coloring it:

The back turned out kind of awesome too. It looks like a profile:

Then I worked on this pendent. I had pierced the copper out waaaaay back last summer during the Cal State Fair. Finally decided to do something with it- inlay with silver, color, add copper chain:

I decided for myself, I wanted to continue with the labyrinth theme, really it kinda makes me happy:

Both pieces had the design pierced out and then soldered onto a piece of silver. The triangle I textured the inner silver, and the circle I antiqued it. Both are set with tiny little amethyst cabochons. I took them out of a pair of earrings I once owned but hardly ever wore. Recycling jewelry is awesome.
There has been other work I've done- a mother's day pendent, some birthday presents. Right now I'm working on my dragon wing necklace. The eye broke out. SOB and sigh. I just realized typing sob that way, I did actually mean wanting to cry (not actually) but son of a bitch definitely accurately portrayed my feeling upon breaking it and not being able to fix it. When trying to fix it this time, I took out the labradorite and carnelian stones from their settings so I could try to actually solder the piece back together since the laser welder is no longer at school. Failed. Instead, I took the wings part, cleaned it up, textured the back. Re-set the labradorite. I miss having the eye there, but it still looks quite awesome, dare I say a little classier with just the labradorite stone without the carnelian. For the eye piece, I soldered on a jump ring so it could slip on a chain. In my endeavor to do so, I frosted the czs that were set around the edge. One cz had fallen out as well. In replacing the one that fell out, the others looked ridiculous in their frostiness so I took them all out and am almost finished setting new sparkly czs. Then I'll polish and re-set the carnelian.

I promise to update more. And I totally have to do an entry devoted to all the tops I've been making. Something about the spring has gotten me into a sewing frenzy.