DESIGN PROCESS
Catherine Dining has years of experience designing original custom jewelry for all types of clients. If you know what you want, she can help you to turn it into a functional piece of jewelry, and if you have no idea what you want, she can help you to decide. If you have your own gemstones, she can design a beautiful piece around them, or she can provide stones to inspire you.
We often start by looking at pictures from our extensive library of jewelry design books, and magazines, and photographs of pieces we have produced in the past, with you sitting beside us, guiding us. Then we draw until we get it just the way you want it. Only when you are completely happy with a design do we begin manufacturing it. Usually this only takes one meeting, about an hour or so. Sometimes it takes more, especially if we are buying new stones for your approval.
We don’t rush you into a decision, and are happy to spend as much time with you as is needed. You can inspect the CAD file, the wax model, and the raw casting along the way, if you want to.
CUSTOM MANUFACTURING
We do most of our manufacturing in house. Come see our studio! It is right here in plain view, and although we would prefer not to have you hovering over our shoulders as we set expensive gemstones, we are proud of the work that we do, and will gladly give you a tour of the facility , explaining which tools we use, and the steps involved in producing our fine jewelry. Just as it is fascinating to watch dinners being prepared in a restaurant with an open kitchen, so is it intriguing to come see us at work in our open studio.
When appropriate, we use other highly skilled independent local jewelers to do some of the work. No studio is equipped to do everything!