Expanding My Skills as a Jeweller
Since September, I’ve been expanding my jewellery skills by attending a silver jewellery diploma course at the Jewellers Academy in Brighton. It’s a once-a-week course, which fits perfectly around having two young children. I don’t get much ‘me time’, so I really value the day to myself - including the 30-minute drive there, usually spent listening to my favourite podcast, Uncanny!
I’ve been really enjoying the course. It’s split over three terms and runs roughly in line with the school year. The first term focused largely on revisiting core jewellery skills such as saw piercing, soldering and hammering. It was good to strengthen these foundations, but towards the end of this term we moved on to areas that were completely new to me, including making hinges, rivets and trying some different stone settings.
I’m now coming towards the end of term two, which feels a bit strange as it’s gone by so quickly. I’m currently finishing off a few pieces that I didn’t quite manage to complete during class time. One of the biggest projects this term has been making a silver trinket box. It’s much larger than the jewellery pieces I usually work on, so it definitely pushed my soldering skills. After working on something at that scale though, soldering my usual smaller jewellery pieces is a breeze in comparison!
We’ve also been learning more stone setting techniques, including collet setting. It’s something I’d really love to start incorporating into my jewellery at some point this year, so it’s been great to get some hands-on practice with it.
Although the course mainly focuses on silver, we’ve also had a few sessions working with gold, including making a wedding band. I always enjoy working with gold, I normally only use gold when I’m creating bespoke pieces, so it was really nice to spend a bit more time working with it.
My favourite new skill so far still has to be flush stone setting (from term one). It’s something I’ve wanted to learn for a long time. I love how the stone sits level with the surface, as if it has always been part of the metal, and how it adds detail without changing the overall simplicity.
Warmly,
Georgia