MetaFilter posts tagged with jewelry

Viking Knitting: It's not just for Vikings anymore!

orange swan — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:48:59 -0800

The Vikings, pillagers and plunderers that they were, were the possessors of quite a bit of metal that needed to be used in some way. So they made jewelry. By the 8th century they had created a technique that is called trichinopoly or more commonly "Viking knitting", although it is really a type of weaving. If the Viking style of adornment appeals to you, you can learn this technique and make your own Viking-style jewelry. It's less complicated than it looks, and you don't even have to know how to knit in order to learn. You can learn to make a necklace or bracelet like this with this tutorial, or by watching a YouTube video. Once you master the basic technique, you'll be able to start improvising by adding beads and findings and semi-precious stones. It's possible that such jewelry was used as currency on those occasions when the Vikings actually paid for their acquisitions, like some sort of wearable bank account. Ostentatious types, those Vikings, but I suppose when you're known for your ferocity and lawlessness, you don't have to fear being mugged or looking nouveau riche.

PRINTER IS JAMMED. OPEN DOOR, CLEAR FOOD, THEN PRESS OK.

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:06:16 -0800

Looking to print your own house, jewelry or dessert? Then check out Engadget's Consumer Guide to 3D printers.

tiaras & so much sparkly

flex — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 11:27:36 -0800

It's Tiara Thursday at The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor, where each week the provenance & history of a different royal tiara is highlighted. You could start browsing from top 15 readers' favorite tiaras or the top 10 ultimate tiara collection, featuring such sparkly as the Danish Ruby Parure Tiara and the Girls of Great Britain & Ireland Tiara. Scroll down for "Featured Tiaras" (in clickable pictures by country) on the blog's Jewel Central page - along with other sorts of sparkly & information: tiara 101! *tiara terminology *the rules of tiara-wearing *tiaras and hair what are those ribbons and brooches piled onto royal outfits? *royal family orders *sashes and stuff, part 1 and part 2 who owns royal jewels? *crown jewels *family jewel foundations *personal property *loaned jewels *acquiring new jewels There's plenty of Queen Elizabeth II sparkly on this blog (top 10: the Queen's best diamonds and her coronation) but if you'd like even more, the Royal Order blogger maintains another blog solely devoted to the Queen's jewels.

Chicks In Luxury

The Whelk — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 08:45:29 -0800

Petter Lippmann photographs elegant poultry.

Fashion for Friday

adamvasco — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 06:18:21 -0800

Remarked by her contemporary Coco Chanel as "That Italian artist who makes clothes" Elsa Schiaparelli (New Yorker - Janet Flanner) bought Surrealism to fashion. She was one of the most influential creators of Parisian haute couture in the era between the two World Wars. Starting with a knitted tromp l ‘oeil bowknot sweater she opened her boutique in 1927. For her; Fashion was Art; working with Dali and Cocteau. Her colleague and protégé Yves Saint Laurent, once said "She slapped Paris. She smacked it. She tortured it. She bewitched it. And it fell madly love with her." She designed Jewelry and had an exquisite range of perfumes. She designed hats and she was quite totally into Pink. She wrote an autobiography Shocking Life; had 12 commandments (scroll down) and has been described as The lost queen of Surrealism.

Not Quite Stalag 13

kittenmarlowe — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:29:22 -0800

Sandusky, Ohio is probably best known for its roller coasters (and maybe the wineries in the area), but one of the most interesting places--a tiny little island in the Sandusky Bay called Johnson's Island--is very often overlooked. Once the home of a prison camp for confederate soldiers, daring (and not so daring) escapes, convoluted espionage schemes, poetry, and eating rats. Despite the fact that the camp was situated on an island, many of the prisoners attempted to escape via tunneling out. One particularly unlucky prisoner, Lt.Charles Pierce, attempted to escape seven times throughout his stay at Johnson's Island, tunneling, scaling the stockade wall and crossing the ice to Cedar point, and two attempts posing as a Union guard. Every time he was caught. He died of yellow fever in New Orleans two years after the war ended.

Another hard luck prisoner was Col. D.R. Hundley who was commander of the 31st. Alabama Infantry. On January 2, 1865, Hundley, dressed as one of the guards who called the role of the prisoners each day, slipped out of the stockade gate. The guards were distracted by friends of Hundley’s who started a fight just as he reached the gate. The morning was extremely cold, and Hundley pulled the cape of his outer coat around his head so that the guard at the gate could not recognize him. Once out of the stockade, he made his way to the ice and crossed Sandusky Bay to the city of Sandusky. At the railroad terminal, he had second thoughts about taking a train to Detroit because of the number of Union soldiers at the terminal. Instead he started to walk in the direction of Detroit, through a blinding snowstorm, following the railroad tracks. To his disappointment, after walking for four days, he came to the city of Fremont which was only about 25 miles southwest of Sandusky. He was able to convince a hotel night clerk that he had fought at the front, and the clerk gave him a room. However after seeing a wanted poster for another prisoner, the clerk alerted the local authorities about Hundley. After some sleep and two good meals, Hundley was arrested and returned to Johnson’s Island. Hundley remained on the island until he was released on July 25, 1865.

(quote and overview of Johnson's Island here) Another intricate escape attempt was spearheaded by Charles H. Colt, which involved him posing as an oil tycoon, making friends with a Northern battleship crew, and hijacking it with a steamer trunk full of hatchets. Details here. Around the turn of the millennium, the private owner of Johnson's Island ran into financial difficulties and considered selling the land to developers to bulldoze over. Archaeologist Dave Bush launched a one-man campaign to save the site, The Friends and Descendants of Johnson's Island Civil War Prison contacting decedents of prisoners and guards in order to raise money. His efforts were eventually successful, as his digs continue to this day. An interview:

So a lot of times we don't hear about...for instance, nobody's ever written a description of the inside of a latrine for me, you know? So I've got to come up with what I think that is based on the archaeological record of how that latrine was structured and why the deposits are the way they are. And not that that's some great historical question that needs to be answered, but it is one of those things we need to deal with when we're trying to figure out how the stuff got in the ground in the first place, right? They talk about tunneling, but they never talk about tunneling from the latrines—and we've found many tunnels from the latrines.... We had about a dozen that escaped, but really none of them through tunnels that we can prove. We know a guy got shot coming out of a tunnel and we know a lot of them got captured in the tunnels as they were trying to escape, but we don't know of anybody that actually got out through tunneling. They usually had to dress up like a Union soldier or a workman and go out with work parties—try to sneak out that way. But in terms of the archaeological record, there's a whole lot there to work with.

He goes on to discuss the excitement of finding an "exquisite" ring on one of his digs. While they seem to find the details of the ring-making vague, a diary from one of the officers imprisoned there discusses one of the prisoner's favorite hobbies:

Having undergone so many privations and severities, and being so long cooped up on a boat, I now began to feel the deleterious effects, nor was I by any means alone in being under the weather. My ailment seemed to be nothing more than general debility, a loss of appetite, attended with a languid feeling. The day after that was rainy and gloomy, such as are complete bores indoor, unless one has some employment. Making rings of gutta percha buttons was a favorite occupation with the prisoners to wear away the time. Those who had friends north of Dixie could send them specimens of thier workmanship, some of which was really exquisitely nice. An ingenious fellow would take a gutta perclia rule and some buttons, and a few bits of shell, silver or gold, and, with no implements but a knife and file, in a little while be able to show rings and other trinkets not to be scorned even in comparison with a jeweler's stock. He would cut the shell and precious metals into squares, diamonds, hearts, triangles and other shapes, which, neatly fitted and imbedded into the face of the polished black surface, added to the beauty of both by the contrast. My room had almost been turned into a ring manufactory, our little shelf being piled fall of rude, homemade tools and material, and my companions were filing and gouging away right earnestly, as though they were convicts, with a task before them. As I never had any mechanical genius, I contented myself with looking on and making suggestions. Some of the prisoners who had been there for a long time, and expected to remain till Gabriel sounds his trump, had managed to procure complete sets of tools, and made it pay by disposing of their trinkets at fair prices, the Yankee boys buying many of them as curiosities for their friends and sweethearts.

Another one of the things he briefly mentions is a woman prisoner who was pretending to be a man: this was Loreta Janeta Velazquez, a bisexual confederate officer, spy, dispatch runner, bond broker/scam artist, miner, and Mormon. A biography of Velazquez can be found here. But the prisoners didn't just spend their time trying to escape from the island. They also had other ways entertaining themselves. Some of the prisoners wrote poetry, such as "The Prisoner's Farewell," written at the end of the war for the closing of the prison camp or "All is Well," written by a soldier who ended his life on Johnson's Island. Other details are left in diary entries or letters. One such diary is A Northern Confederate at Johnson's Island Prison: The Civil War Diaries of James Parks Caldwel (preview available at Google Books), which contains this amusing anecdote:

Mr. Johnson, the sutler and island owner, had sold some prisoners a coal oil lamp, was or soon would be declared contraband. When he refused to take the lamp back, it was thrown at his head. There were no injuries. The culprit was never caught.

Joe Barbiere entitled his memoir Scraps from the prison table, at Camp Chase and Johnson's Island. The official prison records can be found here. While the camp began by treating their prisoners fairly well, by the end of the war the conditions became very inhumane. Rations were so scarce that prisoners began using their squirreled away money to pay for rats, "cooking and eating them to allay the fierce pangs of unabated hunger." (quote can be found in Narrative of prison life at Baltimore and Johnson's Island, Ohio.) Cole: The Johnson's Island camp site is now home to the Archaeological Field School, run by Heidelberg University, where kids can get a hands-on look at how archaeological digs are run. You can see scrapbooks of the student's digs, take a "virtual tour" of the prison camp, or follow an artifact from the dig to the museum.

Elizabeth Taylor's jewels huge success at auction

Anitanola — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:54:34 -0800

Tuesday at Christie's, Elizabeth Taylor's collection of jewelry brought $115.8 million most of it earmarked for her AIDS and other charities. The highlight winning bid of $11.8M came early in the evening for the necklace set with La Peregrina, a legendary natural pearl found in the Gulf of Panama, taken to the Spanish court and later given to Mary Tudor by Spain's Phillip II in 1554. The expected star of the evening, the Elizabeth Taylor diamond ring given to her by Richard Burton, went for $8.8m, well above estimates. Most of the pieces sold above estimates, allowing Miss Taylor one final deft demonstration of how to use fame in a good cause.

Organic Materials and Esthetic Shapes

netbros — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 11:48:01 -0800

Cedric Laquieze is a sculptor specializing in unusual creatures like fairy flowers and goddesses made from organic materials.

Art that grows on you

kinnakeet — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 05:35:15 -0800

Melanie Bilenker documents quiet moments in a unique way. Precious metals, ebony and epoxy resin are the canvas, and human hair is the material used to delicately capture life's simpler things. Victorians incorporated human hair into artwork and ornaments (discussed previously here). I would love to own one of these, which evoke these.

Addicted To Pawn

reenum — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:38:50 -0800

When athletes are in financial trouble, they often go to high end pawn shops to get money.

"We are already experts at lying to ourselves"

schmod — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 11:13:43 -0800

Clancy Martin is the chair of the philosophy department at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He's also an unabashed liar, a recovering alcoholic, and was once suicidal. He's surprisingly honest, and has written extensively about all three of these things. Prior to becoming a professor, he dropped out of grad school, made a small fortune in the murky world of luxury jewelry sales, and nearly became the world's leading dealer of counterfeit Fabergé eggs along the way. He occasionally writes an advice column about lying, and even wrote a few books about it. (via) (previously)

Look Really Super, Supergirl

The Whelk — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:16:00 -0800

Super style simply strikes you? Jeweler nOir teamed up with DC Comics for a line of sparkly Superhero accessories. Wear Gotham city as a ring or just beat Diana at her own game.

Enticing beyond measure the eyes of the beholders

fire&wings — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 07:20:52 -0800

On the 18th June 1912 workmen burst through the floorboards of a disused London tenement at 30-32 Cheapside and discovered "Probably the most remarkable find ever recovered from British soil." The stock of an early Stuart goldsmith - the most astonishing array of precious and semi-precious stones from around the world - hidden c.1630, The Cheapside Hoard is the finest collection of Elizabethan jewellery in the world. Resting uncatalogued in the vaults of the Museum of London with only a fraction of the 500 or so objects on public display, just a small handful of highlights from this treasure trove can be appreciated online. Little known, and largely kept from public view since their discovery, there are tentative plans to display the jewels fully for the first time in 2012.

Diplomacy by brooch

paulsc — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:32:21 -0800

In her new book, Read My Pins, Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright reflects on choosing jewelry as a means of sending diplomatic messages.

Peter Carl Fabergé

Joe Beese — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:00:51 -0800

Between 1885 and 1917, Peter Carl Fabergé and his assistants created 105 jeweled eggs, only 69 of which survive. They are regarded as masterpieces of the jeweler's art. The Rothschild egg is the most expensive timepiece ever sold at auction.

It's My Scar

Hildegarde — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:32:14 -0800

Scar Necklaces. When people ask me what my necklace is, I simply say “It’s my scar.” There is something very powerful about celebrating something that to many is ugly, and should be forgotten.

From Hobby To Passion

hermitosis — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:45:36 -0800

The magic of beadcraft and jewelry-making, brought to you in four parts by Dr. Laura Schlessinger. The results can be purchased from her website, with all the proceeds going to Operation Family Fund, a charity which has raised over $1,700,000 for families of soldiers wounded or killed in the Global War On Terrorism. The series is notable for its complete lack of moralizing or comments on a relevant family controversy-- seriously, this is really just about beads, people!

How to steal priceless jewelry: prank call

figTree — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:30:20 -0800

Theives bypassed all security systems by simply posing as the security company on the phone These days as a robber dealing with high-tech security systems it seems that it's not about being a hacker or having loads of money to pull off a heist, its about making a phone call, having bear spray, and waiting for a guard to go on smoke break. How UBC jewelry was stolen from the Museum of Anthropology : Thieves make one call essentially saying "Oh ya, we are the company in charge of your security systems, tonight we are doing some tests, so when alarms go off, its just tests, so don't worry about it". Security's reply "OK." The UBC gold jewelry: still missing... Simplicity pays off.

Maria Theresa Thalers

Kattullus — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:05:47 -0800

The Maria Theresa Thaler (or MTT), a coin first minted in 1741 and continuously to this day, remained legal tender in parts of the Arabian peninsula as late as 1970, where it was much prized both as a coin and for jewelry [magazine article] Incredibly important for trade between Europe and the Middle East, the MTT had a great impact on history. For more information turn to Maria Theresa's Thaler: A case of international money an indepth article about the MTT by Adrian Tschoegl.

She don't... What now?

ThePinkSuperhero — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:57:49 -0800

You talked to her father, prepared a YouTube worthy proposal, gathered all your courage.... and she said no. How will your life go on? And what are you going to do with the ring? Enter I Do... Now I Don't, an auction site that caters to broken-hearted lovers such as you. Started by a fellow who has been there. Buy if you dare. Via

Let the holiday shopping begin.

sunshinesky — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:04:11 -0800

Scientific esthetics- Made With Molecules. Some classy, some trashy, and some just plain cute. If only there were more!

stretchable electronics

nickyskye — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:36:13 -0800

Electronic, animated tattoos [scroll down to video, which is nsfw]. The latest body jewelry, Skintile Electronic Sensing Jewelry. Electronic Sensing Jewelry has been conceived alongside a European project, STELLA, developing stretchable, flexible electronic substrates that integrate energy supply, sensors, actuators, and display. Development of stretchable electronics for large area applications for use in healthcare, wellness and functional clothes, integrated electronics in stretchable parts and products. Skintile the Electronic Sensing Jewelry further explores emotional and physiological sensing. It is a new genre of product; a generation of wireless, stick-on body sensors that re-define traditional body adornment.

Hairy Mementos

jonson — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:21:16 -0800

Things Gone By is an antique jewelry dealer specializing in the category of "mourning jewelry"; items worn in memory of the dead, usually involving locks of their hair & other materials. The mourning items are not limited to jewelry, as they also feature a gallery of mourning artwork, again made with the hair of the beloved deceased.

The Carrotbox - a site about rings

mediareport — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:54:28 -0800

Grass rings, lace rings, rock rings, bunny rings...The Carrotbox has month after month of posts about odd and unusual rings. Alice is allergic to metal so focuses in her own collection on "glass, lucite, resin, plastic, jade, wood, bakelite and even stone — anything, as long as it's not metal!" She even provides a timeline of plastic history. [via FunForever]

all dolled up

nickyskye — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 21:20:19 -0800

Surreal Barbie and Ken jewelry art by Margaux Lange. Previously (but her work and site have evolved since then). While in China, voodoo dolls have been banned and immediately became a jewelry/accessory craze.