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    Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing
    Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing
    Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing
    Ebook93 pages50 minutes

    Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing

    By Fleury Sommers

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    About this ebook

    Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing is a step-by-step guide for goldsmiths, jewelry designers and serious amateurs who want or need to learn how to string pearls and gemstones professionally. The course begins with the easiest techniques and builds on them to demonstrate the more difficult skills, trying knots between beads and attaching a clasp to a strand. A complete tools and materials list is included early in the book and at the beginning of each project for easy reference. Several suppliers, unaffiliated in any way with the author, are recommended to help students get started.
    The book introduces critical jewelry manufacturing concepts in this niche including design versus manufacturing trade-offs, available materials, commercial findings and more.
    A chapter on freshwater pearls is included since students will undoubtedly be working with this gemstone and will need to answer commonly asked questions from clients.
    Three projects cover the basic techniques in this jewelry making niche. Upon completion the student can immediately begin manufacturing jewelry professionally as well as easily acquire new skills to develop a design vision. Whether the student decides to monetize his or her new skills or use them to make jewelry for personal use, this is a life-changing course, the beginning of a hugely rewarding and creative journey that will last a lifetime.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFleury Sommers
    Release dateJan 10, 2014
    ISBN9781311412539
    Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing
    Author

    Fleury Sommers

    I've been a professional writer my entire adult life, first as a promotional copywriter at a New York publishing house and later as an award winning editorial writer for Cox newspapers. Still later, I worked in public relations writing speeches, articles, brochures, etc., etc.In my late thirties, I became interested in manufacturing jewelry. What began as an avocation swiftly turned into a passionate vocation as I studied gemology and various jewelry manufacturing techniques and became aware of the wonderful work being done by studio jewelers today. I opened a gallery in Houston, Texas. It grew and I moved it to a larger space where I showed work by a number of important contemporary art jewelers.Although I still maintain a small client base, today I'm writing, playing with video, doing a little traveling and following my son, a professional chef, around the kitchen with a towel and a sponge.

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      Book preview

      Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing - Fleury Sommers

      Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing

      Fleury Sommers

      Copyright 2014 Fleury Mills Sommers

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author. ers at Smashwords Edition

      Contact: fleury@fsommers.com

      Cover design Fleury Mills Sommers

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold

      or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

      please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did

      not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your

      favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard

      work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Who I am

      Book Organization

      All Tools and Materials

      Necklace Lengths

      Findings

      Project One

      Understanding Thread

      The Importance of Knotting

      Project Two

      Project Three

      Untying Knots and Reaming Beads

      Freshwater Pearls

      Conclusion

      Who I Am

      My name is Fleury Sommers. I’ve always loved jewelry and the history of jewelry, but my real journey began some twenty five years ago when the clasp pulled off a crystal necklace.

      I took it to a bench jeweler I’d used for other repairs but when it was returned to me, I saw something I hadn’t even realized I’d known. Without knots between those crystals, they would rub against one another and the beads would be scratched. The repair was unacceptable.

      The jeweler was huffy about redoing the necklace and I had the then really startling thought that I could do this. I could learn to string pearls and beads.

      My first step was a local bead shop which offered a class in stringing pearls and beads. The class began and ended with using crimps, important knowledge, of course, but limited.

      I then found my way to the Gemological Institute of America which back then offered a course in pearl and bead stringing. I took the course and was hooked. I went on to take most of the courses required for a degree as a graduate gemologist. I also earned the pearl certification from GIA. (My undergraduate degree is from Columbia and my master’s is from Northwestern.)

      Simultaneously, I began to learn metalsmithing. I took local courses in gem setting, molding, casting, and soldering. I also studied at the Richmond Institute and took a number of courses at the Revere Institute in San Francisco, studying with, among others, Harold O’Connor, who I consider to be one of the finest studio jewelers working today.

      All of this opened my eyes to the wonderful work being done today by metalsmiths and pearl and bead stringers and I opened a small gallery in Houston to show studio jewelry. The gallery grew and I moved it to Gallery Row where I showed work by Harold O’Connor, Cynthia Eid, Sydney Lynch and others. I also showed work by Judith Ubick who is one of the most talented and creative bead stringers working today.

      While operating the gallery, I discovered there was a demand for a pearl and bead stringing course, a real one, not one that stopped short with crimps or one that failed to teach the more complex finishing techniques. The demand came from metalsmiths, jewelry designers and serious amateurs, all people who wanted or needed to develop the skills in this niche. The Professional Pearl and Bead Stringing book and its companion DVDs are built directly upon the gallery course which I taught dozens of times and for which I charged $300.

      Pearl and bead stringing isn’t just technique, of course. It means knowing your materials, understanding design and, when necessary, borrowing from other crafts to enhance your own work. (In this respect, macramé, kumihimo, and various fisherman’s and oriental knots come to mind.)

      The point here is that once you have the basic professional

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