A Beautifully Sentimental Piece

A while back my friend asked me to take a piece of sea glass and make it into a piece of jewelry for his wife.  They had taken their honeymoon in Nantucket, and run across this piece of sea glass while strolling on the beach one day.  It looks almost delft-like in it's design, so I decided to do a very organic looking design around it.  There was also a large empty space on the back, so I made the design extend onto the piece itself to balance the whitespace and provide a little bit more insurance that it wouldn't fall out.  ;) 

It took me an embarrassingly long time to finish this piece.  The metal shrunk a lot more than I anticipated in the casting process.  I ended up modifying the design so that it has the open space you see on the side there so that I could get the sea glass in and accommodate for the shrinkage.  Which required me to solder some pieces that I had previously cut back on... and that was the crux of the problem.  I tried and tried and tried to get it to solder back on but it just wouldn't go.  I started feeling like a complete failure and that I'd forgotten everything, but it just seemed like I couldn't get enough heat into the piece. 

One day I go to try again, and I can't remember what I'd done with my torch.  In a fluster of frustration and determination to finish the piece, I go to the jewelry supply store to buy another torch.  Turns out... I was right.  The piece of poop torch I was using wasn't getting enough heat into the piece.  I came home with the new torch and had the pieces soldered back on and was setting the sea glass within 10 minutes.  I think I cried I was so relieved to finally get it back together.  I felt like I was starting at humpty dumpty and had run out of duck tape.  But, it all ended well and I actually rather like the empty space and it's still really firmly in there.