Finished Amethyst Cabochon Pendant

Finished the pendant. Just put a simple peyote bail.

Amethyst Cabochon

Another cabochon challenge. The stone is a beautiful amethyst, and it's quite big at 35mm x 25mm. It's big for me, as this is actually the biggest stone I had to bezel.

The client requested that as much of the stone be exposed, as it is quite stunning. Therein lay the challenge for me to bezel it securely enough and yet keep much of the stone exposed.

To make sure the cabochon is bezeled securely, it's important that the initial ring of beads fits snugly around. At first I used size 11 Delica cylinders but realized that I would only have one transition to a smaller size bead to clench the stone, so I pulled it off and used size 11 round Japanese seed beads. These are slightly bigger than Delica cylinders so it would allow me for two transitions to the size 15.

When I was able to get the front dome shape already, the tricky part now was to continue the back portion in such a way that the cabochon itself didn't slide around out of place. So I temporarily placed masking tape on the front so I can tug at the transition beads without distorting the bezel itself.

This way I was able to tighten my rounds at the back and my cabochon stayed in place. It's especially helpful as this cabochon is quite heavy and it's easy for it to slip and slide while working on the back so the tape kept it in its place.

This is how the back looks. Even though I added more rows for stability, it doesn't show at all in front. It feels really snug and secure too.

Cat's Eye Bezel

Yet another bezel project.

A client asked me to bezel this green cat's eye stone. It's a 10mm x 12mm cabochon.

It ended up getting pointy at the ends, which kinda makes it look more cat-like I think.

Cabochon Bezel Ring finished

Just finished the ring. The stone is a 8mm x 18mm blackstone diopside.

I decided to add single Czech 13 charlottes along the edge of the ring band.

Back to Pearl Orbit in a while. :)

Cabochon Bezel Ring

I got a request today to make a quick cabochon bezel ring. So I set aside the Pearl Orbit project for the meantime to work on the ring.

The stone is oval, around 8mm x 12mm. It's such a stunning stone. It has these little light refractions similar to Tiger's Eye, but it crisscrosses in two directions and only at a certain angle to light. It's pretty special.

The cabochon belongs to my client. She said it's just lying around and she was reluctant to have it set in silver and wanted something different.

I started working on the bezel itself a couple of hours ago, and I used size 11 Delica cylinders. I used size 15 rocailles for the reducers and size 13 Charlottes for the embellishment. I didn't want to overdo the embellishment because I didn't want to distract too much from the beauty of the cabochon and wanted to make it my focus.

I was thinking of making a flat herringbone for the band but decided that peyote flows more smoothly and therefore will be sturdier because everything fits together nicely. Will continue the band tomorrow.

The picture can't capture the beauty of the stone well enough.