Wire Wrapping Projects - Batch #12 - (Jun 16, 2020)

Good day,

I just looked and it apparently has been 5 months since I did any wire wrapping.  Yep, the tools just lie in exactly the same place as they did before I left town back in January.  Questions crept in .. Could i still twist wire around a rock???  Maybe it would look like twisted barbed wire!?!?  Yikes! 

Without hesitation (cough..) I excitedly took on the challenge of re-learning the art of covering stones with bent wires!

First, there are three from the January time period where I used beads.  These didn't make it in to Batch #11, so here goes:

P090 - Goodsprings Green Blue Beads - a larger stone (really bad focus and lighting) of a mine tailings find which has some Malachite, some Dioptase and a touch of Chrysocolla, bound together in a light 24 guage.  Yes, I intended to make it look miss-shapen (oblong)

P091 - Strawberry Agate Bead - a Colorado river find which is about the size of a quarter.  Also done during my "bead" phase.  My sister wanted this because she liked the bit at the bottom.

P092 - Goodsprings Malachite Tear Beads - The last of my "bead" phase, and an exact size and shape replica of P091.  It is a small dainty little thing done, no taller than a quarter with some of the best Malachite that I have found to date (Azurite Mine to be exact). 

I have gravitated to using "Artistic Wire" more than the half dozen or so other brands which I have to work with.  It is harder than most half-hard wire, and doesn't seem to tarnish easily.

But that is it for the old stuff.  So on to the stuff that I tentatively started to produce again just last week.

---------------------------------

P093 - Goodsprings Dioptase, Cuprite Oval - is a medium sized attempt done in 22 gauge.  I had an opportunity to make the bail design symetrical, and chose not to.  This is a good example of what the Dioptase looks like at one of my favorite Copper mines (Columbia).

P094 - Colorado River Mottle Agate - is a rock that my wife wanted me to wrap.  It is done with 22 gauge, and is basic design.  I had a bunch of extra wire on top left over from not measuring right, so I made some large unusual rosettes with it. 

P095 - Tonopah Variscite Alien Bug - some not so perfect rock, which was very colorful though and wanted to do something different with.  I etched a wide groove around the back to tightly wrap the wire, so no front or back side accents were used.  This is Parawire, which I am not fond of.  It is 20 gauge.  The rock is larger.  My wife said it looked like a alien bug!  And promptly ditched it in the jewelry recesses of her collection, probably to never see light of day again.  I like him though.

P096 - Chrysocolla Southwest Bug - another mine find, it is also wrapped in 20 gauge.  I almost nailed it, but messed up one of his ears (or eyebrows, depending on how you look at it).  He has large eyes .. because.  And I thought it was Southwest looking.  Bug.

P097 - Gunlock Tan Chert Halo - an unknown rock really, which was the only such piece I found while stumbling around the hills of Gunlock, Utah (field trip report coming) last week.  The rock is maybe a "5" on mohs, and has this confetti-like almost floral softer rock embedded inside it??.  A medium sized rock done in 22 gauge.  It really pops in the sun, and I've got nothing like this.  So I had to cab it and wrap it.

So, the good news is that the tools still work, and now that I can get something distracting (like Golf) on the TV while I crank these out, then it looks like game-on for the Summer time with wire wraps.  It is getting pretty hot outside these days.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look!