Write What You Know Part Two

How It All Started…Or I’ve just always been like this…

I moved again, this time to Littleton, Colorado, then to Englewood, Colorado. I was about 14 years old and started cutting up ¼ inch strips of leather, sewing them together with a leather needle to make a ring, and the attaching six beads to the top, one in the middle and the rest surrounding it. I sat cross-legged in the grass in Washington Park and when people asked me what I was doing, I explained. Then I sold them a leather ring for 50 cents.

Somewhere in this era, I started making candles. I used milk cartons full of ice cubes, and after placing a wick in the center, I poured the hot wax in, making a beautiful lacy looking candle. Then I started carving designs out and filling them in with different colored waxes for contrast.

I also started making leather pouches with my mother’s old Singer sewing machine. That old machine was tough. It could stitch through suede.

Then I graduated from high school and moved back to California. I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life until 1974, when I took an adult education class in Encinitas, California.

I learned how to solder silver, made my first ring and that was it. I was hooked.

Here's a ring I just finished a couple of months ago.

Laura Wilson Copyright 2018