Adventures in Jewelry

I have a hobby (addiction) to beading and amateur jewelry making. Recently I have made this formal set of sterling silver and sleeping beauty turquoise. This variety of the semi-precious gemstone contains little to no impurities, which gives it a clear, solid color and translucent "glowing" quality.

I purchased the chain, earwires, cabochons, cinch mounts, and bail from Fire Mountain, an online/catalog company that has literally thousands and thousands of components. Half the fun is in creating a design from the many individual pieces. The technical fun involved with this set was to mount the cabochons, cinch the settings, then attach them to the bail and earwires via loop enclosures. No soldering or gluing needed, just a bit of care and dexterity, and a bit of experience in opening/closing loops without distorting the circular shape or fatiguing the metal (I've been doing this for about 9 years or so).

This particular chain, made in Italy, is called an "Omega" chain; the links are connected in such a way as to give the illusion of one solid piece of metal.