telophase | Gemstone!

So I decided to reward myself for my new change in employment circumstances with a cut (semiprecious) gemstone that I would eventually have made into a pendant, ring, or whatever. I do have a slight affinity for this sort of thing as my dad, years back, was an amateur jeweler and loved to buy gemstones that he fully intended to make use of someday, a trait in which I absolutely do not share. shoves billions of unused 3d assets behind the couch You saw nothing.

Anyway, I was originally looking for one of the funky ones that gemcutters over on Instagram tend to show off, but then I got distracted by a specific very simply cut stone over on Etsy because it was also engraved. The colors and the subject of the engraving fit with my novel perfectly, too. :)

Several characters in the book belong to the very prominent Azaglia family, who hold the duchy of Vernesse. I'd thrown onto the page that the colors of the Azaglia were "sunset colors," thinking purples, oranges, yellows, and also that the city of Vernesse was known as the City of Flowers. And yes, I more-or-less pronounce Azaglia as "azalea," so hey it fits.

I found that there's a stone called ametrine, a quartz that has deposits of oxidized and unoxidized iron in it such that you get zones of amethyst and citrine together, and this particular Etsy vendor had cut one simply and etched flowers on the base, and I thought that of course the Azaglia would absolutely own multiple stones like this.

It's not especially dark in color, and given that it's on Etsy I wouldn't be surprised if it had been heat treated to pull out even this amount of color, but I don't care. :)

You can only see a hint of yellow on the top in this one, but it shows the engraving and how the facets around the sides reflect the engraving to make it look ornate.

The yellow's a bit more visible here.

From the side, you can see that the side facets aren't engraved, they just reflect the center.

From the bottom, where the engraving is.

And from the side, so you can see it's a fairly hefty chonker.

Anyway, it's not the most precious of semiprecious stones--the color is not deep in the least and it's the deepness of the color that determines the value of ametrine--but it has meaning to me and I will eventually go to the jeweler's here that we've bought me a couple of rings from and work with them to design a pendant or brooch setting for it that's vaguely reminiscent of the 17th century. :D

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That is BEAUTIFUL!

I LOVE IT! :D

GORGEOUS.

I KNOW! :D

So pretty!

I had to have it when I saw it. :)

Ohh that is amazing!! (And I love ametrine :D ) I particularly love the reflections of the engraving off the sides.

I feel like there should be a way to set this such that you could use it as a signet to stamp into wax :D (I mean... not that I would actually use such a pretty stone to do that, of course! And setting it that way would probably mean losing the pretty reflections. But it was one of my first reactions, lol!)

That's a great idea.

That's lovely. Mazel tov!

Oh, that's gorgeous! (and yeah, a lot of ametrines are heat treated, but it's one of the less weird treatments for stones, because it's more 'encourage the thing it was already doing'. I love them.)

Also a fan of "new jewelery for life stage."