Blue

One of the many reasons I love spinels so much is that they have so much personality. One minute they may look one color, the next minute, they could look another color. So of course when I had a client reach out and ask if I would set her violet-blue cushion spinel, I jumped at the chance.

Now the ring is currently in transit to the client, but she has already seen most of these pictures.

She wanted a three stone with diamond half moons, and we had a lot of discussion about the design elements of it, and where to go with inspiration.

She suggested that she wanted it to be very traditional from top down, and something unexpected from the side. Her thought was “A professional woman in a business suit, but with blue fingernails.”

The working title for the ring became the “mullet ring”, with business from the top, and party from the side. We went through a variety of diamonds for the surprise stones, and ended up using irradiated yellow diamonds.

I really wanted it to have a minimalist feel from the top down, but wanted a bit of detail on the shank, adding a ridge – inspired by pinstripes so popular in business suits!

The profile was inspired in part by Maleficent. Yes, Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. The small detail on the center stone’s basket emulates her staff, while the shape of the center stone’s basket echos the curve of her jawline, and the lines of the metal holding the half moons mirror Maleficent’s robes.

The cool colors are so perfect for winter, and I cannot wait for her to see it in person!

Lots of things in the works over here.

I’m planning on adding a page with a portfolio for work that may not make it to the website via the blog or some other means. Some of my items are on Pinterest, but not in a consolidated area.

I am considering adding some jewelry items to my etsy shop. I have gradually been letting the listings expire, but will soon be addressing those.

Custom projects are always in the works and I currently have a few exciting ones in the pipeline.

I’m also reconsidering the setting I had planned as a solitaire, the Dignité. I may take it into a different direction than I had been previously, I will have to put some thought into it.

Lastly, everyone keeps asking me if I’m going to be in Tucson this year – I will not be in attendance, but will have a representative there acting as my eyes and ears. Perhaps 2017 will be my year!

I’ve recently taken possession of a Violet sapphire that perfectly skirts the line between purple and blue. I just had it certified by American Gemological Laboratories. I had never done that before, and it was a pretty great experience, especially when AGL testing found out that it was completely untreated.

3.90ctw 9.6 x 7.69 x 6.39

I have a colleague who has been seeking out the perfect violet (or blurple, as she calls it) sapphire for the last several years, and this one ticks almost all of her boxes.

Through her search, I’ve been deeply involved, and recruited several other searchers.

In the end, this stone was discovered after she found her ideal stone, so she briefly considered using it for a necklace, but decided that she needed to share the wealth instead.

In our searching, we discovered that these stones are typically color shifting to some extent. This one transitions from blue to purple, but is violet in most mixed lighting situations.

The color on my laptop screen is less saturated than on my phone, where it looks more like the stone in real life.

Once I get it back from AGL, I plan on taking a lot more photos of it. It’s a challenging stone to capture.

You can see that it has some cut flaws, showing a slight darker bowtie in the above image and a small partial window in the two shots below.

Showing a slight windowing effect that is more visible in picture than in real life. I wouldn’t dream of touching the cut on this, I wouldn’t want to alter the color in any way.

This stone has been listed for sale on LoupeTroop.

Custom Three Stone

Gem Blast: Violet Sapphire