2013 was a very big year for me. It was busy and life changing and apparently I didn't have time to post a single blog entry. With so much going on I certainly need to rectify that and fill people in. I met my fiance on Halloween day in 2011 and convinced her to move in with me within a couple of weeks. By Sept of 2012 I had plans to marry her and had a beautiful half carat eighty eight cut diamond set aside for me in my diamond dealers safe. The one I
picked out fluoresces under black light, not all do, not everyone considers it desirable, I think its pretty neat. I spent the next many months designing the ring in my mind and saving my pennies, literally. My diamond broker told me that mine was the first diamond that he had ever seen purchased partially with rolled change. Once the stone was in my possession I set about making plans to propose.... Oh ya, and I had the rare honor of building the ring that my fiance now treasures. White gold and sterling silver mokume gane is a favorite of both hers and mine so naturally I wanted to incorporate it. I built the frame and setting out of 19k white gold for both strength and beauty.
I inlay-ed the mokume gane, marked out the placement of the diamond accents, drilled holes and soldered in more 19k white gold. Now my diamond gypsy set accents will be surrounded by another edge of 19k white gold, a time consuming detail but one that I'm very pleased with. Everything needed to be filed and sanded to shape and the main setting needed to be soldered in place. Some polishing and then it was time to address the diamonds, two of my accent stones are black diamonds to continue in the black and white theme that I started with the mokume gane.
I set the stones and moved on to even more challenging parts of the procedure..... I told/ asked her father, which turned out to be more nerve racking than I thought it would be. His response "right on!", set me at ease. I borrowed a camera from a photographer friend of mine, one that had the ability to be set up and take photo after photo so that our proposal could be captured in stop motion. The results were amazing, if I can get some tech help I'll attempt to post the short video clip at some point. I chose to propose in a spot close to my fiances home town, on a hike she had been dying to take me on.
Luckily, the location was perfect, I knew it would be. Her father coordinated a surprise BBQ for afterwards so she got to spend the evening with friends and family. It couldn't have gone any better, we've since been planning for our 2015 wedding. Planning big life events seems to occupy a great deal of my time these days, I'm not complaining, just letting you know why it took me so long to update my blog......
