("Countess," 1880, William Rogers)
If anything warrants raising this blog from the dead, it is the strides I have been making with my new hobby--flatware jewelry! This past January when I had just moved to upstate New York and was very stressed, I was whiling away too many empty hours in the old way, by quilting. But my heart just wasn't in it. I almost completed my second small quilt of the past year before giving up and turning to TV for solace. I seriously watched almost the entire series of Mad Men for the second time before deciding that I needed a new hobby to channel my creative energy and get off the couch. I have also been playing harp pretty diligently, but I think the crafting half of arts and crafts satisfies a different part of my brain or something, and I wanted to be creating objects that were not quilts.
So I decided to give flatware jewelry a try. I am way behind the times I think because I did not even know that flatware jewelry existed until last spring when I saw an octopus necklace made out of soldered forks at a craft display in an antique store. I had to have it! It's one of my favorite pieces of jewelry and this gave me the idea of making my own someday. Since then I have seen flatware rings and bracelets made by local artists at various antique stores and craft fairs, not to mention a ton on Etsy.
I am definitely not up to the level of octopuses yet. In fact, I haven't learned to solder at all and right now I am making all my jewelry without any heat or blowtorches. I bend the spoons through sheer muscular force! And I use the Dremel tool to cut and smooth the metal. Someday I would like to graduate to the level of soldering even though it is quite intimidating. Using a drill is milestone enough for now.
But really, the thing that I might enjoy most about this hobby is looking for the flatware itself at antique stores. This has truly been a pleasure for me in a time of serious professional turmoil in my life. And I have found some beauts! Here is a selection:
From left to right the patterns are called: Carlton, Florida, Violet, and Wild Rose. I just love, love, love the variety of silverplate patterns that are out there. When I was in Pennsylvania last week visiting my parents I stopped in at Street of Shops (where I found the Carlton forks) and a few thrift stores. At one thrift store I was amazed to find these:
This pattern is called "Milady" and they were 10 cents apiece because they were so heavily tarnished that no one realized that it was basically a complete silverplate set. Here is what they looked like before I cleaned them up, very speckled and dirty:
There were so many I ended up leaving some behind. As it is, I have no idea when I will be able to use them all for jewelry crafting. But since they were so cheap they will be good to experiment with if I decide to branch out from necklaces and bracelets.
So far I haven't made much, but here are a couple of pieces that I think turned out pretty well.
This is my favorite and I wear it out a lot. I couldn't identify the exact pattern but it looks a lot like "Yorkshire Rose" that another company manufactured. The necklace below is a popular pattern called "Rosalie." I gave this one to a friend of mine. I love how art deco it looks!
The book Boho Chic Jewelry by Laura Beth Love has a lot of examples of flatware jewelry and I got some good tips from it. All of my flatware so far has come from antique and thrift stores in central Pennsylvania and upstate New York. I know a lot of people look for this stuff on Ebay, but checking out the local antique scene is well worth it if you have the time!
