Learning something New

As you might know by now we are attending a course here in our town all focused on techniques with silver wire, most are only done in one region in Turkey. One of the techniques is Kazaziye and the result is pretty amazing.

Kazaziye is a local art from the northern Turkish city Trabzon. "Kazaz wire" is used to form a traditional and unique type of Turkish jewelry, the so called "Kazaziye". 

A strand of 24 K gold or 999 K silver having only 0.008 micron thickness (as fine as one strand of human hair) is wrapped over a very thin silk thread with the help of a spinning wheel (no power tools are used). 

Finished Kazaz wire can be 3-5mm thick; it is flexible, yet very strong. The matte finish of the Kazaz wire gives Kazaziye's remarkable pieces a timeless, vintage look. Simply exquisite!

The masters of the art hand-sew Kazaz wire into intricate designs including knotted beads (Turk's Head Knot), herringbone chains, Shemse Motifs (Love Knot), tassels, necklaces, pendants, earrings and rings.The exact history of Kazaz is not well-known, however, it is said that this art was born in Mesopotamia area by Lydians in 2800BC and later spread north to Anatolia. During
the Ottoman Empire, this art was more common, but today it is almost only made in Trabzon.

It is so exciting to learn something new, and is great that we can use what we learned in to our own work. Usually Kazaziye beads are used in specific ways, but we like to use them in a not traditional way to make them our own :)

I've already listed a few of these in our shop, and more are coming, and can't wait to show you more results of our very fruitful course, not to mention that our group is super fun and we have lots of laughs so it is a really nice experience.

Silver Weaving

We just begun a new, very exciting class: silver weaving.

This kind of work is known as Trabzon (Trebizond) work and is done generally in 22kr gold. We begin with copper wire and than when the time is ripe, will continue with silver wire.

The teacher tells us that the technique has its origin in the Caucasus, where till World War I, was used to make body armor. You can use a bracelet to pull a car, so strong is it.

Here is a very nice YouTube film where the real thing (in gold) is shown. It is in Turkish,  but it is lovely and easy to follow. About six thousand women in Trabzon work in their homes making this kind of weaving or braiding.

The tools couldn't be simpler. A special pair of hand made tweezers, a pin or needle, and a tooth pick.

It is not easy to do, but we feel privileged to have access to such an special art form.

Besides the Trabzon work, we will learn many other types of silver braiding, used to make bezels, chains, and many other things.

All the braiding that you see in this jewelry is hand made.

For this work you use only a small vice and your hands.

The teacher is a lovely and competent woman and it is great fun.

Here you see the beginning of two different types of braids, with six and seven wires.

Our Creatice Space...

Now that I've started to work with silver, I also needed a table that I can use without fear with fire and heavy tool. As a silver smith table is not a possibility right now with our tight budget, an old wooden table will do the tric for now. It looks nicely rustic and shabby and we didn't have to spent a cent on this new workplace which is a bonus :)

Our Creative Space...

We were in İzmir last week. Usually we are there for 3 days, 2 nights, we shop till we drop for supplies and go back home. This time we were there for 1 week. Shopping went a little slower as we had more days, and I went every morning for about 5 hours to a silver smith's atelier to learn to work with silver.

 The atelier was incredibly shabby (without any chicness) but amazing stuff comes out of it. The silver smith himself was very patient with me and offered me lots of help, advice and tips and after 6 days I've already learned alot.

 Here a peak to the old fashioned tools.

 Here often molds are used to make lots of  the same model at once, after that only small details have to be soldered. They use the disappearing wax technique for that. So for each silver piece a wax piece has to be made. Once enough of the wax pieces are made they are attached to a tube and then put in to some kind of pipe. The pipe is then filled with plaster and this is burned in the oven. In the oven the wax disappears and a large plaster mold remains for lots of pieces at once, this is filled with sterling silver and ones cooled of there are dozens of rings or whatever kind of piece was molded.

 I didn't learn this wax technique as what I will make of silver won't be made in large quantities besides they will be made according to shells, stones and other natural shaped objects. But it was fun to find out how this system works.

 I took a bunch of eye of shiva shells with me, and created bezels for them.

 After the bezels are soldered I saw them in the shape I wanted.

 And here is a sneak peak of the first pieces I made.

 Slowly more will appear in the shop :)

See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.   

My Friday Night Outfit

Travel journal or sketchbook diary hand painted with African textile cover red black by Avedouda
Black Smocked Messenger Bag - Unisex by StarBags
Personalized Wedding Tree Branch Guest Book Pen by JKartshop
Cotton Fabric - Cursive Handwriting - Half Yard by theheydayshop

This week not a fancy outfit for the night but more some kind of school gear while I'm having my TOEFL exams today (wish me luck!).
Since Monday we are in İzmir where we always shop for supplies. Usually we stay just for 3 days but this time we are here for a week as I'm also having silver smith lessons at a silver smith. I've taken pictures in the atelier, will show them soon! With lessons and exams we still are also shopping everyday, I don't know how we'll be upon our return home, pretty beat up is my guess :)

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

The rules are simple; make a fun outfit with items from Etsy (you can include one of your own items) with the mosaic maker or photoshop orPolyvore. Post it on your blog with the links to the featured shops, and add a link linking to this blogpost so that your readers can see the other outfits as well, this way we will all be connected :) You can then add your mosaic here below by clicking on the 'add a link' button so that everyone can see your outfit here as well, you can leave your link till Saturday evening.