Transformation Challenge

I made this top recently by re-using material from a dress which never fit me quite right. I was reluctant to sacrifice the pretty dress but since I no longer enjoyed wearing it I figured there wasn't much to lose.  Fortunately I was able to reuse most of the material including the stretchy empire waist. All was not lost. Actually, I thought it was a pretty neat challenge to transform the dress into a new top and I felt a real sense of accomplishment after it was completed.

Crimson Summer Dress

I did it! I finally managed to motivate myself to alter the red dress that I made last summer in my intermediate sewing class. Last year after I finished the dress I had been very disappointed about it being too big in the  bust and torso. It had taken so much effort to make that I couldn't bring myself to start taking it apart again right away. I wore it once to the office to see if I could get away with not making it any smaller. A co-worker asked me whether I was pregnant which seemed to be a pretty good indication that it wasn't a flattering fit! I decided to shove the dress in the back of my closet to rest there indefinitely.

Well months later I bumped into the same co-worker and she mentioned that in the spring she had found out there were five pregnant women at our workplace but only knew of four. Since we don't have that many women at our engineering firm she naturally thought to ask me since I was recently married. Apparently she never even noticed my dress. Funny. 

Anyway here is the dress now after my alterations and trust me, it looks much much better. I took in the sides and added a ruffle to the neckline by transforming what used to be the tie around the waist. Then at the last minute I decided to add some cap sleeves. Ta-dah! I will definitely wear this dress again now.

Oversized Shrug

Check out my oversized grey shrug that I finished recently. I tried making this without any patterns at all, just a go-with-the-flow project.

I figured since it was going to be big and loose that measurements weren't so important and I could probably wing it. At one point when it was too wide for me and the sleeves were still full-length and loose, I was quite discouraged with how much it looked like a judge's robe! Not sexy. But then I made a few adjustments and the shape came out much better; I cut the sleeves shorter, put in cuffs, added three long pleats in the back to bring the shoulders closer together, and rounded off the bottom edge.








I also put in binding along the entire opening edge to help it hang nicely in the front. Finally I added some detailing with ribbon, just like with my cushions and Boxing Day shirt. I was ambitious enough to use the zigzagger to sew in the floral ribbon pattern in the back of the shrug. That was pretty tedious and not necessarily easier than hand-stitching but it was good practice!

Floral Flounces

Flounces, flounces, and more flounces! I made this shirt for my mom just in time for Mother's Day today. The fabric and zipper came from an old skirt that my mom had made years ago and no longer ever wore. She still loves the fabric pattern so she never got rid of the skirt. Now she can finally wear the fabric again but in a totally different form.

My original design included only the five flounces along the front portion of the shirt with just a simple, plain neckline. Unfortunately I didn't do a great job lining up the flounces evenly along the neckline and the lack of symmetry really irritated me. In the end I had to mask the error by adding a ruffle for some more detail. I think it turned out pretty well overall and more importantly, the fit was just right. My mom tried it on just before we headed out to High Park to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom and it was a very good fit.

Pocket Dress

I love pockets! I once saw a wedding dress on television with hidden side pockets and wished I had seen something like that in time for my own wedding. I think it's because I never know quite what to do with my hands and they always tend gravitate towards pockets (my own, of course). I'm quite proud of this dress which was created by only loosely following the guidelines for the cotton tunic.

I added pockets, long sleeves, darts, and a zipper in the back which weren't in the original instructions. I bought the fabric at a 40% discount sale during Fabricland's 43rd birthday celebration and promptly got started on the dress right after I finished my cotton one. The fabric was more difficult to work with than I had expected because there was absolutely no stretch to it. Consequently I had to put in the darts and invisible zipper so I could easily get into and out of the dress without needing to call for help (which I did the first time!).

Cotton Tunic

At the end of March I developed some crazy allergic reaction and my hands flared up so horribly I missed more than a week of work. It was very upsetting being unable to do anything for myself because both my hands were blistered and swollen over. I only got relief two weeks later when we headed to the emergency room at Toronto Western and they prescribed me with Prednisone. It's been a slow recovery so far, and unfortunately I had to drop my jewellery course at George Brown midway through the term, just as I was about to finish my silver box project (grr).

So, as my hands continue to slowly improve I've decided to temporarily set aside my jewellery tools and bring out the ol' Singer again. Sewing is much kinder on the hands than jewellery-making. Plus I have a few projects lined up already, starting with this cotton tunic/dress. Originally I had longer sleeves and a longer hem line but I started wondering if it was looking to 'granny-style conservative' so I snipped off a few inches. It instantly made the outfit look better.

Gem Setting

The first-level Gem Setting course was offered at George Brown during the winter term and I took it over seven Saturdays for six hours each day. It was by far the most expensive jewellery course offered at the college and I had to purchase a number of tools that cost extra from the tuition. Overall I was very disappointed with the experience and definitely think that it should have been more hands-on for the 42 hours that were invested in it. Despite that feeling I wanted to post the projects I completed anyway since I've been doing so for all of my other courses. 

The rings we worked with were silver cast rings which were tumbled and had a rough finish.  These were provided to us by the instructor. The course focused strictly on the gem-setting technique and we weren't supposed to "waste time" finishing off the rings but I thought it would actually be a waste not to finish them once the cubic zirconia stones were set (which is the hard part). Since there was extra time during each class I went ahead and filed and polished the first three projects after setting the stone.

1.  Four-Claw Setting

We started with the four-claw setting which taught us to use high-speed steel burs, triangle files, and pumice wheels. It was a little unnerving trying to make bearing cuts into the silver claws to match the shape of the stone and secure it in place. The contact surface was extremely small between the bur and the claws. Several times as the bur was spinning it skid across the claw and nearly wrapped around my thumb - yikes! That would have been messy.


I also had a difficult time getting used to wearing the optivisor and eventually just used the lowest magnification available (1.5x) so that I wouldn't get disoriented every time I looked up from my bench pin to reach for a tool.


2.  Bezel Setting

For our second ring we learned about the bezel setting which I found to be easier than the four-claw. We still needed to use the high-speed steel bur but cutting a groove along the inner wall of the bezel was not nearly as daunting as trying to cut out even grooves in the four separate claws. There was a lot of hammering with this ring to displace the metal along the top of the setting which clamped the stone into place. I didn't mind all of that tapping though, probably because it felt like nothing compared to the intense hammering from my silversmith course with my copper bowls!



3.  Channel Setting
For the channel setting we used 156C Tungsten burs to cut out grooves in the channel wall. The spacing between the teeth of the 156C burs is tighter than the spacing for the high-speed steel ones which makes them less aggressive to use. This ring had only five stones but took me a few hours to set because of my inexperience.

After setting all of the stones into the silver ring by hand, we learned the technique of setting stones into wax. I didn't realized that rings could be cast with stones already in them but we learned that rubies, cubics, and blue sapphires are hard enough to withstand the heat from the casting process. Setting these stones into the wax ring gave us a direct comparison between the two techniques. Hand-setting took several hours (for an amateur like myself)...setting in wax took less than 10 minutes! Unfortunately not every design can be set in wax which is why the skill of gem-setting is still important.

4.  Gypsy or Flush Setting
Our last project was the gypsy setting with 13 small cubics. Needless to say this took some time to complete! Again it took me several hours to set in metal but only 15 minutes to do in wax. I didn't get a chance to polish this ring so it still has the brushed metal finish to it.











After completing this fourth project I do not feel at all prepared to try even a simple setting on my own at home. It's not that I expected to be a master gem-setter after only 6 weeks of courses but I thought the course was poorly taught and poorly organized.  I would not recommend it to anyone (and I'll leave it at that!)

Lost Wax Casting: Koi Cuff Bracelet (cont'd)

Here is my finished bracelet after polishing with Tripoli.   I'm really proud of this bracelet which probably took around 30 hours to carve in wax and another 4 hours to finish in metal.  Too bad it's quite heavy and not at all comfortable to wear!  It looks great on my jewellery stand though and turned out better than I ever would have thought.  I will just have to make my second bracelet even better (after a little break in between, of course).

Lost Wax Casting: Koi Cuff Bracelet (cont'd)

I was able to cast my koi cuff braclet in sterling silver this week - how exciting! In my previous class I soldered a massive sprue at the base of the bracelet and then set the mold. I ended up keeping most of the bridge as support so there will be a considerable amount of silver I can recover from this casting. One of my classmates took a final photo of the wax piece just before I said goodbye to it for good.

Preparing the piece for casting

 There was a fair bit of prep before the actual casting process took place. I had a bar of fine silver that had to be cut with copper to make sterling silver which is harder and more durable. It took a painfully long time to melt down such a large amount of silver and my hand was pretty crisp from holding the torch.

Here I am with my instructor Shao getting ready to melt the sterling silver beads with the torch.  In the right photo I'm adjusting the flame before pointing it down into the centrifuge.

After the piece was cast I had to wait another 20 minutes for it to cool down before plunging it in a bucket of water and retrieving the bracelet. That felt like a verrrry long 20 minutes.  Here is the bracelet with the massive sprue sawed off (which took an hour with a tiny jewellery's hand saw!).

Bracelet just after casting (fine silver coating)

Copper Spoon: Forging Technique (complete)

(cont'd from here) Voila - the final product! I might have used the wrong type of planishing hammer the first time I was finishing the surface of the spoon but it created a pretty neat texture on one side. While shaping the bowl I used a different planishing hammer which took out the initial rougher marks. However I decided to keep the texture along the handle because the contrast was more interesting.

Lost Wax Casting: Koi Cuff Bracelet (cont'd)

I was able to dedicate a lot of carving time to this bracelet over the holiday season (I love that my office shuts down for Christmas!).  The bracelet is coming along nicely and I've spent many hours carving, digging, and scraping away wax.  I'm still pretty timid with the tools so I end up making multiple passes over the entire bracelet, slightly deepening the grooves each time.  Not very efficient but I'm getting good practice, that's for sure.

The right-side koi is beginning to take shape

Another 3 hours spent adding details such as scales and fins

The wax model is almost ready for casting. I've spent a considerable amount of time hollowing it out and taking down the thinnest sections of the bracelet to about 1.2 - 1.5 mm. Before the holidays the wax model weighed 33 grams. Now it weighs 15 grams, and will be even lighter once I cut out the bridge and create the opening in the bracelet for my wrist. The weight in sterling silver is approximately 10.4 x the weight in wax so there is definite incentive to get this piece lighter.

In the right-hand photo you can see the neat texture that my instructor suggested I add to the inside of the bracelet. It took about 45 minutes just to do that detail alone but it really gives the bracelet a nice finished look without requiring me to file the finished piece from the inside.

Boxing Day Shirt

I managed to find some time over the Christmas holidays amidst the food and festivities to return to my Singer for a cute little project. On Boxing Day I happily spent the day in my pyjamas at home coming up with the design for this new top. 

Because I had no plans to leave the condo I rummaged around for random pieces of fabric and notions and rediscovered some green and red binding in my sewing box. I spent a few hours hand-stitching the roses and flower stems on the front and back of this top, then assembled the two halves using the Singer. After trying on the top I decided it looked a bit too boxy for my liking so I added white ribbon all the way around the upper portion to break up the blank space. Next came a few red buttons for detail and red binding to tie up the back. Voila! 

Lost Wax Casting: Koi Cuff Bracelet

In my model-making class last week I started a cuff bracelet which will probably take me into the new year. This project will give me something to do during the Christmas break when we're off for a few weeks. I was inspired by a design I saw online here. Pretty ambitious I know, but hey it's something to strive for.

After sawing out a thick block of wax for the cuff bracelet I used the drill press to take out the middle section. I drilled a series of holes around the inner diameter and then cut through the remaining bits of wax with a regular jewellery's saw frame. Then it was time to file, file, file!

For now I'm keeping the cuff quite thick to provide support until all of the design has been carved into the front.  After that it can be hollowed out from the inside to reduce the cost and weight of casting.

Design for new bracelet

Here is the design I plan to use for the bracelet.  I found a nice stencil for a single koi online so I simply mirrored the image and added some more flowers as filler. I sized the design for my bracelet, printed it, and  taped it to the wax cuff for transfering. Using a pin I transferred most of the design onto the wax, leaving out the more intricate details such as the fish scales and the smaller flowers. This took about an hour.

Design transferred to wax using pin-pricks

It took me about 3 hours with the flex-shaft and a set of burs to create a sunken relief for the blackspace in my bracelet (I was way too timid with the burs). The instructor thought this project would take 40 - 50 hours to complete - so far I've put in 7 hours. I'll have to decide just how much fine detail I want in this bracelet but ultimately the plan is to have it ready for casting in January before my courses end.

Lost Wax Casting: Dragonfly Pendant

For my next pendant project I decided to try a dragonfly and aimed to make it thinner and lighter than the swan.  I started with a 2mm-thick piece of wax and filed it down to 1.7mm.  Then I used needle files to start forming the overall shape of the dragonfly and borrowed a graver from the instructor to do the grooves in between the wings and beads of the body.

Here it is after I finished casting it in sterling silver.  Again the white colour is from the fine silver which  hasn't been polished off yet.  I made a rubber mold of this pendant after soldering on jump rings and polishing it down a bit.  This time it was alot more difficult to cut the two halves apart in the same plane where the pendant was because the dragonfly is much thinner than the previous swan pendant!

I ended up giving this necklace to my friend and then cast one of the blue duplicates for myself.  I tried finishing the pendants with the polishing wheel to get a high-shine coating but was unsuccessful.  Because the pendant is so thin it heated up very quickly with friction.  This softened the metal (making it easy to bend) and meant it was very difficult  to hold onto the pieces for more than a second or two at a time - hot hot hot!  Eventually I settled for using a tiny polishing wheel with my handpiece.  It couldn't do the job as well as a polishing wheel but saved me from getting any more burns on my fingers!

Copper Spoon: Forging Technique (cont'd)

copper blank and brass template

I did it, I managed to saw out the copper blank in just over 40 minutes and I'm proud to say I didn't break a single saw blade. After filing down the edges and annealing the copper I went on to saw out a brass spoon template. This took about 10 - 15 minutes which seemed like a breeze compared to the 3mm thick copper.

Results after initial forging

Next it was time to tackle the forging hammer. Which really meant pounding for a good 20 minutes and then switching to a lighter hammer. My forearms were throbbing at that point and I figured I was better off having to pound harder with a lighter hammer than having my forearms scream at me for the next two hours.


I had a very difficult time forming the copper blank into the shape of the brass template. The goal was to thin out the spoon bowl and top end of the handle, meanwhile shifting the excess copper into the neck of the spoon where it should be thickest. Shifting metal is easier said than done!

Trying to shift metal from the bowl to the neck of spoon

As you can probably make out in the photos the bowl of the spoon is still quite thick so I have a long way to go. We had the option of also making the spoon out of silver, which only one student chose to do. I wasn't quite confident enough to lay down $80 for a silver spoon but unfortunately that means not being able to use this copper spoon once I'm finished.