A Second Pair, Close But Not Identical on Purpose
Okay. So you made a pair of earrings last time, both from scratch, and if you're anything like most people in this class you spent a good chunk of that lesson trying to make the second one match the first one exactly. I want to talk you out of that, at least a little.
Here's my actual opinion, and I'll say up front it's a little contrarian: I don't love matched sets. Not "don't love" as in they're wrong, plenty of people want two earrings that look like they came off an assembly line, and that's a fine thing to want. But I think two earrings that are close, same stone type, same general shape, same wire, but not identical down to the millimeter, look more like a person made them. Which they did. You made them. There's something a little sad to me about working so hard to hide that.
I'm not going to force this on you. If you want to spend the next hour measuring wire to the sixteenth of an inch trying to get a perfect match, go for it, that's a real skill and worth practicing. But today I want you to make a second pair where you let yourself off that hook a little, and see how it feels.
What we're doing
Pick two stones or beads that are the same type but not identical. Same color family, similar size, but let them be a little different, a slightly different shape of chip, a slightly different shade. If you're using leftover stones from the trailhead pile some of you have going, even better.
Wrap each one using the wrapped-loop technique from last time. Same steps: loop, wrap down the stem, trim, tuck the tail flat against the coil so it doesn't catch on anything. I'm not walking through that whole process again since you've got it, but if your wraps are still uneven, that's normal at this point and it'll keep evening out the more pairs you make.
Here's the part that's different. When you get to shaping the ear wire, don't hold the first one next to the second one and try to duplicate every bend. Shape the second one by feel, using the same size round-nose pliers, same general motion, and let it come out a little different. Maybe the curve is a hair tighter. Maybe the stone sits a quarter inch lower. That's fine.
Where the stone actually decides things
This connects to something I've mentioned before but it matters more here. Sometimes the stone itself pushes you toward asymmetry whether you plan it or not.
I had a stone a while back, a chunk I picked up on a hike, and it was completely the wrong shape for anything I wanted to make. Long on one side, stubby on the other, no balance point. I spent a whole summer trying to wrap that thing into something that looked intentional. I redid the cage probably six separate times. Every time I'd get three sides looking good and the fourth side would just refuse to sit right, because the stone wasn't built for symmetry and I kept asking it to be.
I finally admitted the stone won. It's back on my windowsill right now, unwrapped, just sitting there being a rock. I look at it sometimes and I'm still a little annoyed at it, honestly.
The reason I bring that up here is that your two stones today might not be exactly the same shape either, and if you try to force identical wraps onto two non-identical stones, you're going to fight the material the whole time, the same way I fought that one all summer. Let the wrap respond to the actual stone in your hand instead of the wrap you did on the first earring. That's the whole idea behind borrowing shape instead of inventing one from scratch, which we talked about a few lessons back, and it applies just as much to earring number two as it did to your pendant.
A caution
You'll be doing more looping and trimming today, which means more sharp little wire ends flying around. Same as always, safety glasses on while you're cutting, and check both earrings by running a finger gently along every wrap before you call it done. A tail that's tucked but not tucked all the way will find your ear or your sweater eventually, and it's an easy thing to miss when you're eyeballing two pieces at once and comparing them instead of really checking each one.
When you're done
Hold both earrings up next to each other, not to judge whether they match, but just to look at them as a pair. If somebody picked these up off a table, would they know a person made them, or would they think they came out of a machine? Either answer is fine. I just want you to notice which one you made.
Before next time: bring one earring you're genuinely happy with and one you're not, if you've got both. We'll talk about why.