Exciting new toy: hammer and block.

Yes, I know I'm several decades behind the rest of the world, but look, this is really exciting for me, so humour me here... I have got myself a hammer and block.

I have always loved the look of hammered spirals of silver wire. They look all uneven and handmade and interesting. When making jewellery, you're fighting a constant battle to differentiate your work from all that cheap, mass-produced stuff (some of the mass-produced stuff isn't even that cheap, but it's still not very well-made when you look carefully at it). Otherwise, really, you might as well shop on the high street and have done with it.

Investing in a hammer and block was a bit of a risk, though, because I obviously can't afford actual silver wire, so I have had to use silver-plated copper instead. And I was really worried that the copper would show through the silver-plating after hammering, thus rendering the hammer and block a total waste of money.

So tonight, slightly more noisily than I'd have liked, I made a "sampler" section of chain (just three beads on three pieces of wire, plus a practice connector at one end that you can't really see in this photo).

These beads were upcycled from a vintage necklace (where "vintage" = "found in local charity shop"; we're all about reducing our Bead Miles, round here)

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Night photography + macro = camera shake. But you get the general idea.

If I hammer with the flatter part of the hammer, at least, you can't really see the copper wire showing through the silver.

I wonder if the copper might show through if I try adding texture - that might be actually quite a cool effect. I'll have to experiment with that one.

I'm quite excited about this: I've learnt a lot about design (especially colour) since I last did any real wire-work, so it'll be nice to compare with my older blog posts to see how my approach has changed since then. Watch this space!