The Journey into jewellery making continued.
At that time my confidence was still very low and I didn’t handle large groups well. The appeal of this workshop was that the class size was 5 and there were 3 spaces left. I thought it would be ideal if I and my two sisters could take those spaces. As it turned out only the youngest could make it. We booked.
When we arrived there were actually 7 of us plus the tutor, but that wasn’t too bad. We worked in the dining room of her beautiful cottage.
The tutor explained what metal clay is, how it is created and what all the tools were for, and how the clay becomes 99.9% silver once fired. Then the fun began.
My first pieces, as is often the case when one tries something new, were not awesome but I was entranced by the alchemy of heating the dried form and firing. We fired on the tutors kitchen gas burner. The puff of smoke, followed by the lick of flame. The wait for the salmon colour to appear on each piece and then timing. WOW. Clay to silver just like that. I was completely hooked.
Both my sister and I came away happy with the days experience, and several small charms we had each made. I was already planning what tools to buy, and where I might be able to set up a little table to work from at home.
It was the most enthusiastic and upbeat that I had been about anything for at least 2 years. Here was something that was magical, interesting, creative and could be individual.
Little did I know that I would soon be looking for ways to expand from making silver pendants, charms and earrings. Nor that I would be asked to make jewellery for others. The Journey would continue to expand.
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