As many of you know I have always farmed alpacas on my land at Lyme Regis. A few years ago their numbers reached almost 200, with 6 studs, lots of females and over 50 babies born each year. There are 2 fleece styles in alpacas, the fluffy ‘teddy bear’ style known as Huacaya and the Suris, which have distinctive long silky locks. You can see the differences below.
Fleece styles in alpaca
Fluffy huacaya are always popular with their cuteness but I adore the superior looking suris. I have always had suris in my herd, with two suri studs and lovely babies - known as cria.
When designing a silver pendant to showcase alpacas my first choice was a Suri. The waving, soft silky locks, blowing around in the breeze are simply adorable.
I chose a profile photograph of a suri to begin the design process, creating flowing organic shapes from the silky locks. It was important to me that the overall shape of the pendant had a natural and pleasing shape whether one recognised it as an alpaca or not. The image was hand-carved in wax and then, using the lost wax process, cast in solid sterling silver. This original ‘master’ is then cleaned, polished and recarved for added detail and used to create a mould. From this mould, multiple copies can be cast. As gold bullion is very costly at the moment, I decided to cast in silver. 10 pieces were produced with my casting company based in Hatton Garden in London. When the pendants arrive back from being cast they need a lot of work, to remove the sprues, with lots of filing and polishing.
If you’d like to see how the pendants are filed to a high shine take a look at the video below.
Polished to a mirror shine the pendants are ready for hallmarking. All of the pieces that I choose to hallmark go to Golsmiths’ Assay Office in London - the birthplace of precious metal marking.
This almost completes the design and creative process. All that’s left is to solder a jump ring through the suri ear and attach a chain. I have chosen a 20-inch wheat chain for this piece as it’s delicate, pretty and prized for its strength. I hope you like the result. If you’d like to purchase a pendant, you’ll find them in my shop - but be quick, only a couple left!
