What to do About Metal Jewellery Sensitivity

I often have conversations at markets with customers who have metal sensitivity issues or who are buying for someone who does.  It's an incredibly common thing and one of the biggest culprits is Nickel. 

To look at it's a rather beautiful shiny silver metal, unfortunately it contains properties that cause contact dermatitis with LOTS of people particularly when it's worn in a piercing - ears being the worst. In fact, Nickel was voted Allergen of the Year in 2008 by the American Contact Dermatitis Society!!


Nickel
Interesting Facts: 1st classified as a element by Axel Fredrik Cronstedt in 1751, it's element symbol is NI and atomic number is 28, Dutch Gilders (currency) were made of Nickel until being replaced by Euros in 2002, and US 5 cent pieces still contain Nickel. Australia has the worlds largest reserves at 24,000,000 metric tonnes

I ran a quick survey on my Facebook Page to see how metal sensitivity affects my followers and only 16% were able to wear any type of metal.  Wow, that leaves an awful lot of people who have to be careful with what they wear!! Nickel is not the only culprit of course - impurities in metal alloys can also cause an allergic reaction, for example cheap brass.

I thought then, you might be interested to know which metals are considered to cause the least reaction:

• Sterling Silver, Fine Silver, Yellow Gold 14K +, Niobium, Titanium, Silver Fill, Surgical Steel, Argentium, Copper, Jewellers Brass, high grade stainless steel.

And those that can cause reaction:

• White Gold (contains Nickel), Nickel Silver, German Silver (does not actually contain silver!!), Cheap Looking costume jewellery where the metal is likely an alloy mix of unknown metals, some stainless steel grades.

There are a couple of things you can try if you want to wear jewellery you know you're going to react too:

• coat the jewellery with clear nail polish - you'll have to repeat this every now and then as the polish will wear off.  Do be aware that nail polish contains chemicals you may not want to go in a piercing - eg toluene and xylene, so it may be better suited to the back of watches, pendants or clasps, depending on your feelings about chemicals.
• earring post protectors - these are little polythylene clear sleeves that fit over your earrring post.  A nifty invention, they will increase the diameter of your earring post and may take a little getting used to but will form a barrier between the metal and you!
• liquid bandage - now this one may seem a little odd but I know someone it works for!  She puts a little of the liquid on the front and back of her ear, and once dry, inserts her earring hook - the liquid bandage provides a barrier between the hook at the back and front from touching the surface of her ear and lets her wear her earrings for longer.  Worth a try if you have some in your first aid drawer!!

Brooches galore!…

I can’t believe how popular brooches have been just lately – people wanting to add some sparkle and colour to winter tops, coats and scarves . 

I actually ran out completely – Yikes!  So hence it’s a bit like  ‘Brooch City’ on my making table this week. 

Actually, I kinda managed to spread to most flat areas of my lounge … there’s been shells on the coffee table, various brooch components on the dining table, and a rather spectacular spillage of swarovski crystals, freshwater pearls and seed beads on our hideous multi-coloured ‘80’s carpet (thank goodness for the lovely person who once gave me the tip of putting a stocking (pantyhose or tights depending on where you’re from!) on the end of your vacuum cleaner hose to safely retrieve them all.

Here are just a few ‘in progress’ pieces awaiting their backing and brooch findings.  More colour combos to come…

Are you a brooch lover?  What piece of clothing do you like to wear yours on?

Prettying Up Paua Shell and a New Bracelet

So the paua shell processing has progressed to stage 2 ... getting the 'sea life' and lime coating off the back of the shell!

There are two ways most people do this - hydrocholric acid (ew yuck) or a grinder (possibly even yuckier). No way in the world will I ever use a chemical that is toxic to the environment and dangerous to me and grinding is downright messy and requires an extractor, respirator, safety goggles and probably overalls for good measure!

So I've been experimenting with different eco-friendly methods I've dreamt up and think I've hit on a winner that doesn't require too much elbow grease either.

From this....



To this ...


Not all done as I'm processing them in small batches, and these ones still need a little bit of work but I'm pretty darn happy with progress so far!

On the creating front, I was keen to use some beautiful deep purple silk chiffon ribbon I've had a while and combined it with some pretty chinese Amazonite rounds in the palest bluey green to make this knotted bracelet.  It's super comfortable and I love the colour combo.  What do you think?  Shall I make more?

I have some great silk strings and other semi-precious stones I can use too

Bloglovin - I'm lovin' it!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

With the soon to be demise of Google Reader (1 July) I've had a hunt and found a great blog reader - Bloglovin - can't believe I haven't come across it before now. I've had a play with it for a couple of weeks and I'm sold!

It's easy to transfer your existing Google Reader subscriptions to Bloglovin, group them and even get a daily email summary of new posts.  There's also a user friendly phone app.

Here's a sneak peak of what my screen looks like today with two of my fav NZ blogs to follow...

You can follow my blog on bloglovin by clicking here...

Viking Knit Tutorial Variations - Double Knit and Variegated style

Following on from my very popular ‘How To Do Viking Knit’ post I wanted to share some fun variations to try once you’ve mastered single viking knit –  the super strong and structured Double Viking Knit, and colourful denim look ‘Variegated' Viking Knit.

You’ll notice in the pics below I have used the Lazee Daizee tool – this is purely for photography purposes of this tutorial and using the diy method of pencil, dowel or allen key and ‘flower’ base is absolutely fine too!

So – standard single viking knit looks like pic 1 and 2 where each ‘stitch’ goes in behind the loop above, working around and around.  With double knit you start with couple of rows of single knit (you don’t need as many as I have done!), then when you are ready, instead of going into the 1st loop above – skip it and put your working wire through the next loop above (see pic 3).  Continue around working into this upper row of loops until you have gone the whole way around


Once you have a complete round of double knit, do a round of single knit by going up just one row (pic5).  Then when you have a whole round of single knit, go up two and do a round of double knit (pic6).



Continue doing one round single (going up one) and one round going up two until you have the desired length.  It can be hard to get the wire behind the loops depending on how tightly you knit (I'm a pretty tight knitter as you can see!), so it's fine to take it off your mandrel and go freehand for a while.  Pop it back on if you feel your knit is getting out of shape.



Once your knitted tube is as long as you want it, remove from your mandrel and use some scrap wire through your top loops to help you pull your knit through a draw plate.  (I have quite a bit of single knit on my example purely so I can show you the difference between the two knit types)





Wallah!  pic11 shows single knit at top, double knit at bottom and for pic12 double is at the top, single towards the bottom


Apart from having a more 'chunky' look, double knit also gives a firmer structure.  pic13 shows me trying to bend it with equal pressure but while the single knit bends, the double resists!



The next fun variation I wanted to show you is what I call 'variegated' viking knit.  Here you use two thinner wires in different colours at the same time.  I have used 28 gauge, deep teal and gold wires in single knit style in this example. 

Using a light and dark colour (particularly if you use silver as your light colour), gives a 'denim' look to your knit.  It also looks fantastic with a light and dark variation of the same colour, eg hot fushia pink teamed with pale baby pink, and stunning with contrasting (even clashing!) colours, eg tangerine orange and deep magenta.

You could also try using two wire and double knitting - that would be 'double double' knit I guess!





Take care not to use too longer pieces of wire when working with two at a time - you can get yourself in a very tangled state quite easily!   One arms length is a good amount to work with.  I know that not a very technical measurement but that's how I tend to work with viking knit! 

(FYI - when working with one wire, single or double knit in 24 gauge wire, I measure my working wire by holding the end in one hand, stretching my arms out parallel to the floor with the spool of wire in my other hand and that's the right length for me! - that's two arm lengths and a chest width if you're trying to picture it  :)  )

I've loved hearing about how you've gone with my original viking knit tutorial, so please let me know how you find this one and the wonderful creations you make.  You are also welcome to 'Pin', share and otherwise link this post - thanks, Mel x