  When
you are developing any new technology, you occasionally make a
breakthrough, finding a new way to do things that is more powerful than
the prior techniques. Sometimes you are smart enough to recognize
the power of the breakthrough immediately. Sometimes you only
understand the advantages after a period of time. In the case of the
earring designs shown at right, we have to admit that we did not
understand the power of this approach until after we had used it for
several months.
 I n
pages 1 though 8 of this series we discussed several methods of making
earrings, with the designs growing in complexity. This particular
design makes an earrings body, not from one piece of wire, but from two.
What makes this design powerful is that we can make a wide variety of
styles and sizes of earrings from two wire components that are each
relatively easy to make. We trade off the added complexity of
connecting two wire components against the fact that the two components
are each easy to make. This is as opposed to trying to make and
earring design with one piece of wire, bent in a more complicated pattern.
The end result is that when this design approach is mastered, advanced
beginners to making jewelry can make a wide variety of earrings designs.
Now let me try to explain the magic in this approach. We show two
 earring
designs in the paragraph above. Imagine that you can trade the top
from o ne
of these earrings with the top from the other. This could be done
relatively easily and would make two new earrings styles. The same
could be said for the top of the earrings shown at right. All you
need is to make an earring top that has a place to attach an ear wire at
its top and a loop on the left and right sides. This earring top can
be connected to any earring bottom that has a loop on either end whether
that earring bottom has only two loops or as many as 10 or more. The
varieties of earrings that can be made are almost endless. |