There‘s no doubt about it, one of the most important pieces of equipment that a jeweller needs is a good solid bench to work at and I’m lucky to own a beautiful purpose built bench made of British Elm. I love it for so many reasons, mainly because my husband, a skilled carpenter, made it for me and it is so beautifully detailed and also because the tree that it originally came from wasn’t actually felled for timber but came down naturally in a storm. I can’t imagine working without it now.
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But I’ve also been trying out some other benches recently. You might have seen me at Hatch ‘19 at the National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford where I held a two day workshop texturing and shaping metal. It was a fantastic, busy couple of days with lots of people trying their hand at applying pattern to copper discs and then doming it out to make pendants.
It was a free drop-in session and I was really impressed with the creativity and imagination that people brought to the project on the spur of the moment, it’s really encouraged me to think much more playfully when I’m designing my own work. I’ve also learnt that you should never underestimate the cathartic power of hitting a piece of metal with a hammer really hard and that it’s actually quite difficult to politely wrestle a hammer out of the hand of a very determined four year old! We had a great time and our ears are still ringing!
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December saw hilomilo popping up at the NCCD again for Gifted, the lovely weekend Contemporary Christmas Craft Market with festive music, mulled wine and lots of wonderful crafts and makers on show. There were also so many great workshops that you could take part in... fantastic printing, wonderful needle felted cacti making amongst others ....and I ran a Christmas decoration making workshop on the Saturday and met so many lovely people. Everybody really got stuck in and made some some gorgeous decorations which hopefully went on to decorate many a tree.
The hilomilo stand at Gifted manned by my fantastic assistant Molly.
Heads down at the bench!
Just a small selection of the finished decorations.....aren’t they beautiful!
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I’ve been feeling pretty inspired by these workshops and the amazing enthusiasm that I’ve seen people bring to whatever they’re doing and such a willingness to just have a go at something new.... so I’ve decided to get stuck in myself and get those jewellery making courses from my own workshop up and running. I’m pleased to say that I’m finally ready and I now have six more lovely, fully equipped workbenches in my workshop where students can come and learn all sorts of different jewellery making skills from silver soldering to ring making, pearl stringing to bowl making.
The aprons are hanging on their hooks ready and all of the tools are in place, new courses are already on the website and more will be added regularly which will hopefully offer new ideas and something for everyone.
So if you fancy my kind of bench workout (with strictly no dumbbells) pop along to the courses page of my website to see if there’s a course you fancy. https://www.hilomilo.com/book-online
Thank you for reading x
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