More herringbone

Ok, I think I got the hang of the herringbone weave. My main problem here is making decent loops. Since Eni's tutorial is based on loops upon which to build the herringbone with thinner wire, they always look loopsided and just plain ugly. However I saw now a tutorial by Nix where he built up the herringbone on the plain wire, not on the loops. The little basket weaves are much nicer an much more uniform. So I guess until I win the battle of loops, I'll do these on plain wire.

The first picture shows some plays with copper wire (one is coated, one is plain).












The second is a copper set with some interesting non-uniformly shaped red stones. Have no idea what these stones are, but they're darn cute.

Hm, I guess I'll know what color outfit I will wear tomorrow at work, huh?
Love the little wrapped bail of the pendant, I've done it from a Eni tutorial and whenever I have some spare wire, instead of cutting it off, I make a loop with it, quite nice.
Let's see if I'll say the same ("quite nice") in one year's time when looking back at this, shall we? *grins*

Another things I've realised today is that I was forcing myself to do stuff so I can add them to my Etsy shop. I was looking at each piece as a potential seller. And I was losing my creativity in the process. As soon as I was working tonight on these copper pieces, thinking of wearing them tomorrow at work, I started enjoying again making jewelry :)

One other thing I learned today: how to work with the chasing hammer and not mar the wire (or at least mar it with the minimum of marks). It was in the way I was holding the hammer, I need to have it perfectly parallel with the bench block, not at an angle. I only had to change the angle of my arm at about 20 degrees and voila, my first hand-made ear wires with flat side and no marks, yayy!