I’m a little bit sad because I recently let go of two stones that I’ve had for a long time and had previously spent a lot of money to set. However, sometimes things just change and you have to let go. I’ve owned enough gemstones and jewelry items to realize that if you are meant to have it, it’ll probably come back to you. And if it doesn’t come back, odds are pretty dang good that something “better” will pop up later.
To date, I don’t regret passing on most of my gems, although there are some that will stay with me, and I will continue to think about them for a long time. Now that I think about it, there is no one gem that I say, “Man, I regret letting go of that stone!”
If anything, I regret certain settings for some stones, and often take big hits there. I’ve learned over the years to let a gem tell me how it wants to be set, which sounds kind of corny and New-Agey, but I can’t figure out a better way to express how I feel. I have set things before and gone on to regret those decisions mightily when coming to the realization that they just didn’t work together the way I wanted them to.
I’m a big believer in matching the stone to the jewelry item and to the owner, and I am glad that I’ve developed a stronger sense of how I best operate. It has taken many gems to get there, but I think that I, my collection, and my knowledge base really have a strong background for what I want in a piece of custom jewelry now. It has taken a lot of gems to do it, but I think that knowing the gems went to good homes is part of why I have so few regrets.
So, while the stones that I recently parted with are beautiful and I will remember them fondly forever, I am so happy they went on to new homes. I hope that their owners love them just as much, or more than I did, and I hope that they give me updates on what they did with the stones, or even let me help them figure out how to set them.
Say “Adieu!” to these guys:
I’ve been working on designing a lot (with a couple personal projects, a design contest and some other random stuff) and blogging not so much. Between the holidays coming up and all of the craziness that accompanies them, I’ll be slowing down on the blogs a little bit until the first of the year.
The Gemstone Project 