New Bracelets

This is our 3rd day at the Bah! Humbug Festival in Chico. We are doing very well, Friday, our first day, was one our best first days in all the years that we’ve done this show. A lot of our Chico long time customers paid us a visit and acquired new jewels. We expect to have a great show.

I’m very excited about the bracelets pictured here, I had two of them on Friday and they both sold very quickly. I’m happy about that except now I don’t get to show them to people although I do have photographs of them to share. I’ve made 6 variations of this bracelet over about a 4 year period but I plan to make a lot of them in a great variety of designs in 2012.

In the images at the right, the top one is the first one that I made and have been wearing for about 4 years. I wanted to personally check the dependability of the catch to make sure it wouldn’t come loose at unexpected times. As part of the process of making these, the
bottom part is hammered to harden it and make it springy so that the catch system will work and be secure. The hinge pins are 14k gold because it is stronger than sterling silver and also because I like the color contrast.

The series got started when a longtime Sacramento area customer retired and her
co-workers gave her a gift certificate for our jewelry which they knew she loved. She wanted
a clip bracelet like this with inlaid turquoise, sugilite and black onyx. I don’t do very
many special orders any more but because of the uniqueness of the situation, I decided
to take on this one. I made my bracelet as a model to get the technique down and then
made hers. I’m still kicking myself for not getting a picture of it and hope to rectify that
situation next year. After I started wearing mine at fairs, I got a lot of interest in it and
could have sold it off my wrist countless times and have a number of people on a waiting
list who are waiting for one. I thought I would continue making them but somehow just
never got around to it. Although they look fairly simple, they are really quite a lot of
work. Earlier this year, a good Bay Area customer was looking at  bangles that I had made
and really liked one that had a pattern similar to the center  bracelet pictured here. She
decided though that she didn’t want  a bangle but instead wanted a bracelet like mine
that incorporated the bangle’s pattern. I reluctantly said I would try to make one
sometime. It took me 8 months to get around to it, I only mailed it just before coming to
Chico Thursday. I wore it at a Sacramento show I did recently and one of my best Davis
customers wanted one and I just mailed that one also. I had one more of that design and
Friday at the Bah! Humbug,, one of the first people who looked at it bought it. Not very
long after that another customer bought the other, the one pictured at the bottom. OK,
I get the message, people really want this bracelet design and I’m going to make and
sell a lot of them and have a great time doing it and developing new variations and
designs. I should add that this year at shows I’ve had more people ask about  bracelets,
both men and women than I can remember in my long jewelry making career. So, I
guess it must be time to make some. If you have some thoughts on this and design ideas,
send me an email or make a comment on the blog.