Try, Try Again.....

I am not a patient person, as I may have mentioned. In fact, I am obsessed, and if something about my obsession requires me to wait, it is very trying for me (maybe it's the ADHD). So today, when I finally received a large shipment of wire, part of which was the new wire I needed to do faceted stone setting, I felt a great sense of relief. I got my wire in time to play with it much of the weekend. After doing the usual housekeeping tasks of making sure everything was correctly labeled and taking some wire off the spools to add to my jewelry work bag (I take my wire on the road a lot), I had to pick a stone to wrap. As I may have mentioned, I lucked into a nice collection of faceted stones that a friend of mine collected and decided she didn't need. I chose a dark blue spinel oval, about 8X9 mm or so (rather an odd shape, between round and oval). I should have started with something simpler, but I never do. When I first started with lampworking, sans lessons, but with a book, I decided to make my first bead with dichro and a fancy shape. Sigh. Trying to learn to run before you can walk is not wise, but for some reason I always do it. To make a looooooooooooong story short, I messed up the first wrap because I hurried it too much and didn't curve the shoulders (near the bail) right. The proportions of the wrap may also not have been right--I think Robbie told me that the basket is not supposed to show on the front of the stone, so the basket may still be too big (as it was on the big aquamarine I wrapped for my first faceted stone wrap). I hated to see it go in the scrap pile, but it's not entirely surprising given that it is probably the smallest thing I've ever wrapped. The second time, I took a deep breath and wrapped more slowly and more neatly. I was MUCH more careful to do the shoulders neatly, and I did the steps in a slightly different order that made more sense to me. The tail wires were a problem because I cut the first one too short, so I had to modify the design in the book. Therefore it doesn't hang perfectly straight. I now understand why that design is laid out like it is--to balance the weight of the wire--so although this was not a perfect wrap, it was a good learning experience. I feel that the wrap is quite wearable despite its imperfections. I was going to do another wrap tonight, too, but I have decided to 'let it sit' for now and reflect on the process and results to glean any other insights that might help me do better next time.