Ruby Tuesday

Sorry, that title only just occured to me, and I couldn't resist it!

No Tutorial Tuesday today. I've been writing up magazine projects all day and to be honest, my brain has gone on strike. It's not that I don't have lots of ideas and tips that I want to show you, it's that I wasn't organised enough to write up a tutorial in preparation over the weekend as I normally do (I was teaching for half of the weekend, a decent excuse I think!) and I can't face taking more photos and writing up more instructions today, sorry! Prehaps I ought to borrow Nic's idea and do a few videos for you. It would certainly be easier and clearer to demonstrate and film something like a bow line drill than it would to take step by step photos. I think I need to borrow my parents' video camera....

Anyway, I realised that I haven't shown you any students' work recently, so I thought I'd show you this.......

Isn't that stone amazing? And the setting is just perfect for it. Any texture or complication would detract from the beauty of the stone, but believe me when I say that a simple, silky smooth setting is actually often trickier than a textured one - textures can hide quite a few sins!

It is, of course, a ruby, the largest one that I had ever seen in real life. It was made by Brenda a few weeks ago ( I haven't edited the photos from Saturday's tuition session yet, but that was on stone setting too). She has a rather large collection of beautiful stones, both faceted and cabochon, and wanted to learn how to set them. I think she did brilliantly, especially as it was her very first attempt at stone setting. I've actually bought and set a couple of her cabs, as she's starting to sell them (only so that she can go and buy more - it's become something of an addiction for her!), and I'll show them to you later in the week when I've finished my magazine work.

P.S. Nic has actually posted a couple of new pmc videos in the last few days - so we have a Tutorial Tuesday afterall! You cna find them at www.pmctips.blogspot.com

P.P.S. If, like me, you are now tunelessly humming "Ruby Tuesday" you may like this!