It’s finally here, having been a long time in the making, and it’s a ring we are all very proud of. For such a strong design, it still looks beautiful and feminine when worn on the finger.

See more images here; http://jondibben.co.uk/products.php/Fairtrade-11/

I bought the large stone last summer. It was one of those situations where I knew I would buy it within seconds of seeing it. It’s a stunner!

Scroll on to read more, and to see some images of the ring being finished along the way.

Designing the ring

The ring took us at least 10 days to get the design right from initial sketches to a working 3D ring,  and involved making 4 silver mock ups, and numerous changes.

‘Seating’ the stones…

Once the ring was made, the first stage was to ‘seat’ the stones into the settings; making subtle adjustments to get them sitting level and straight, wedged in at the right height without any movement, ready to be set. Unlike mass produced jewellery, we use traditional hand engraving tools to cut metal out of the inside of the setting, slowly and surely, allowing for a more refined finish. The aim is to cut a fine ledge for the stone to sit on, hence ‘seating’ the stone.

Each stone can be placed in and out of the setting dozens of times to get them sitting just right. Below shows Dudley ‘offering up’ the large stone.

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Initial sketches for our first Fairtrade and Fairmined gold ring commission.

This one has been a lot of fun to design. The client has been incredibly generous creatively, giving me a great deal of freedom to explore ideas. I have pages of sketches. I am now in the process of ‘taming’ this look, only to the extent of making it both practical to make and wear!

It’s going to be made in 18ct certified Fairtrade white gold, and set with a heart shaped blue sapphire and little treated blue/ green diamonds.

I will post some pictures of the finished piece when it’s made.

I love this photograph of our latest piece, taken by Dudley in the workshop this very afternoon, in fact, just after he finished making it…He’s a very clever man.

It’s a beautiful, fresh looking stone, with the cornflower blue colour of a classic ceylon sapphire. It’s always unusual to find a sapphire of this quality and size, at 5.74cts, in a round shape.  They are most commonly cut as ovals, cushion shapes or octagons, due to the shape of the crystals found.

It has small round white diamonds that emerge from under the stone to be just visible from the top. It’s part of my Meadow series of rings, and you can see more views of this piece on the Collector page.