Jewellery making workshop in a fantastic Greek countryside in Peloponez by Doretta Tondi

I am just back from my holidays in Greece, well this was my working holidays in fact!
Doretta Tondi is a very talented self taught jeweller, I admire her works and in fact there is something being made specially for me!
Here is Doretta's Ring that is particularly popular and my favourite:

A link to her shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/DorettaTondi?ref=seller_info


I spend 8 days making silver jewellery from a scratch, starting from melting silver granules with copper, making flat sheet of silver, silver wire to use this elements for making beautiful brooch:

a ring

a set of earrings  and a couple more things.


I was based in a lovely village, with quiet streets lovely caffees.

Every afternoon we spent 2 hours in the village in the cafe sipping lovely orange and lemon granitas. This is the main street of the village in the morning hours, streets are cleaned, and people get organised for the next big trading day.

Same street at night, equally busy. I enjoyed this life out on the outdoors.

 
Knowing myself I knew that I will not bathe in the sea, let alone have a proper beach style tan, since bikinis in Ireland are not an essential article I did not bring one at all!
So my tan consists of unsatisfactory streaks of sun here and there, my Irish friends were unimpressed.

Here some photographs from Dorettas studio:
Soldering a bracelet I was fixing

there is this special thing about this bracelet, my mother had bought it 40 years ago and spend one of her very first earnings as a local teacher. Now, well worn loops were broken. NObody from the local jewellers were keen to fix this bracelet as the time spent would cost more then the value of the bracelet they think. So I brought it to Greece, and work for 2 days to make new links and solder them together. The sense of achievement is enormous since I saved something of an emotional value and did all the work myself. CErtainly I am good at soldering now after all that practice!

 The Greek countryside is beautiful and this photograph is my favourite!