As anyone who has been reading my blog for a while will know I love opals. So naturally I also love the opportunity to use opals when designing a new piece of jewellery. The opal I have used this time is called a Koroit Opal, it is an Australian opal mined in a place called, not too surprisingly, Koroit in South West Queensland. Koroit Opals are known for their deep, strong ironstone with magic patterns and inclusions of colour. Koroit Opal can be clean faced opal or have inclusions of natural brown potch, either way most Koroit opals are unique. The piece of opal that I have used has a gorgeous and distinctive blue flash near the top of the stone, as well as several smaller flashes of blue.
Because of the brown base colour of the opal I decided to wire wrap it in 14k gold fill, as I decided that this would compliment the colour of the opal than sterling silver. I wrapped the opal carefully trying to minimise the amount of wire that covered the stone so as to ensure that while the opal was held securely in place, the wires did not distract from it. I completed the pendant with a spiral above the stone, and two small sweeps of wire from either side, again above the stone, which themselves have formed a heart shape around the spiral. So there it is, the design behind my Australian Koroit Opal Pendant.
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