The internet’s free dictionary says that crisscrossed means  “. . . To move back and forth through or over. . . “  It makes me think of a snake swimming across our pond in a serpentine pattern or Dixie, our blue heeler (cattle dog) crisscrossing behind a bunch of cows as she tries to get them to move in the right direction. She just gets one side of the bunch going and then has to cross behind them to the other side to get those stranglers moving. By going back and forth, the cows eventually go the right way.

There certainly are some beautiful jewelry designs that feature crisscrossing strands or wires. I worked with this idea and hope to be on the right track. I wanted the waves of these crisscrosses to be consistent, but found that especially difficult to construct. Although I measured carefully and worked with care, when I put the two separate pieces of wire together and curved them for the neck pieces, they became a bit whoppy jawed.  (Is that an Oklahoma term?) Alas, I finally just went with that look and once again called the work “organic”. I never actually thought of sterling silver as organic, but today it is!                             

You can grasp the idea of the crisscrosses more easily by observing the following pictures. The close up of the silver shows that the main piece is attached to my hand made chain. 

The copper wire in the other photo shows a better view of how the two pieces of molded wire crisscross together to form the neck wire.

I made the silver dangles from heavy gauge fine silver wire using the torch to fuse each ring. I then hammered and textured the pieces. I tried putting on more dangles, but three turned out to look the best.

The second necklace shown here displays larger crisscrosses. It wasn’t what I envisioned, but I do like the shape. The dangles on this piece have either blue or red copper patinas made with household products. I’m still debating whether to leave them on or take them off as the piece looks fine without them. What do you think?

Crisscrosses have many possibilities for use in designs and they present me with a nice new challenge not only for necklaces, but also earrings, bracelets and pendant wrappings. Look for more of this design in another entry. If you don’t see any in a few weeks, you’ll know they just didn’t work out. I believe it’s OK to take a challenge and fail. You just have to try!