Chic Metal by Victoria Tillotson

Chic Metal: Modern Metal Jewelry to Make at Home by Victoria Tillotson ($24.95 US; $27.95 CAN) focuses on metal jewelry fabrication and soldering techniques. Just like taking an actual jewelry class with the author, who happens to teach at the School for Visual Arts in New York City, you'll learn all the basics of metal jewelry making as you work your way through each project.

The introductory section of the text covers what you need to get started. First, Tillotson explains how to locate a place in your home and set it up properly for metal jewelry making. Then she moves onto the basic tools and supplies you'll need such as a punch, hammer, rotary tool, saw, and torch. After describing what each of these basics tools are used for, she also includes a "wish list" of additional items you may want to start collecting as you become more involved in metal jewelry construction.

Tillotson used the techniques as a way to organize the projects. This is where her obvious experience as a jewelry instructor steps in because that's how most metal classes are set up. You learn techniques as you actually make a piece of jewelry, and the more jewelry pieces you make, the more techniques you learn and the more advanced the techniques become. For example, her first project and techniques chapter in the book is called "Wire Cutters, Pliers, Hammer, and File," all tools that any novice will learn to use almost immediately in a metal class. Then she has a half dozen projects designed around the use of the tools so that you learn while doing. The next chapter builds on these skills and adds more, "The Saw, Drill, and Dremel."

There are a total of 29 projects, which include illustrations for many of the techniques and color photographs of the completed jewelry pieces in the book. They start at the very beginning level and work up in order of difficulty until what she terms as "advanced intermediate." The majority of the jewelry designs use geometric shapes such as circles, teardrops, or triangles, so even the more advanced projects are very approachable as you build your skills working through the previous projects. She also includes a large number of earring designs in order to allow you to have extra practice on some of the techniques since you have to duplicate many of them to make two earrings in order to have a pair completed.

Though there are some beads and gemstones incorporated into some of the metal designs, this is (as the title suggests) primarily a metal book, so you'll be working with heavy gauges of wire and lighter gauges of metal sheet. You will file, cut, saw, hammer, and fire up your torch a little, so while the beginner can definitely complete many of the designs in this book, expect to get your hands dirty, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I say this only because there have been a few metal type books published in the past that do not attempt to teach the fabrication techniques at the level of Victoria Tillotson's book.

I also found all of the designs to be contemporary and very wearable, so I think most jewelry makers will want to wear the pieces when finished making them, a particularly nice incentive. For anyone who has already learned basic wire and bead skills, this is a great bridge book to learn how to move onto other types of jewelry making. The author is encouraging as she coaches you through the steps for each project or explains what a particular tool is used for. If you can't make it to her class in New York, this is obviously an option to consider.