Custom Pi Wedding Necklace - SUPER SEKRIT PROJECT Revealed!

For the last few months, I've been low-key mentioning what I termed a SUPER SEAKRIT custom project. I didn't want to tip my hand too much about it, though—I wanted the recipient to be both surprised by the work and to be a participant in the process. As of this writing, the custom necklace has been done for a while, the wedding is over, and Mrs. Carter (the former Ms. Hagan) has spoken her piece about her custom pi necklace over at Math Equals Love.

I mostly just want to bask in the warm fuzzies of that post, first and foremost. I've been reading Math Equals Love for a while now, so I'm well aware of how thoughtful and warm Sarah is, so I have no good reason to be surprised by the depth of her appreciation and the kindness of her words. I guess I'm just cynical and world-weary. #TooCoolForSchool But I thought it would be fun to give my side of the story (such as it is). So: the life of a custom piece of STEM jewelry from Kokoba!

When it comes to blogs, I tend to add in huge binges: during Book Blogger Appreciation Week, ArmchairBEA, or (in this case) right after signing up for BlogLovin'. (Are you on BlogLovin'? You can follow me there!) Confession: I don't really use BlogLovin' at all for actually reading your blogs—that's what I use Inoreader for—but once in a while I peruse the categories. I found Math Equals Love and added it to my feed, and quickly grew to enjoy it. I make math jewelry, and I work as a teacher (though of English, not of math), so two things right up my alley.

I made the decision a while back to try to take my jewelry a little more seriously. I don't know if I want to make Kokoba a full-time endeavor, but my life is at the point where I could handle a fairly serious bump in sales without it eating up to much time or any of my sanity. I have a bookmark folder full of blogs that I still need to get in touch with, still; Sarah was the first blogger I contacted. Conveniently enough, she ended up getting married a while later and so I had the opportunity to make a pi necklace for her wedding. Cool!

There is something about doing a custom piece (or maybe just wedding jewelry?) that unlocks some kind of extra room in my creative brain. And, I won't lie, people also come to me with really awesome ideas for a custom piece that I would have never thought of. Rae's full adder skirt stay has now become two bracelets and a necklace (unlisted because I'm kind of "meh" about it, but the bracelets were snatched up); another custom piece was based on an equation, which I would have never thought to try and represent on my own. Another friend of mine pointed out how easily I could model molecules (somewhat abstractly) in beads. Basically, you all are super smart and give me so many ideas.

Behold, all of the silhouettes I proposed! Sarah eventually chose #3, which is the most like what I usually make. I have a couple like #2 that are back home (and were actually the suggestion of another friend aaaaaages ago), and Natalie often sports a (truncated) version of #5, the only version of that one I've made so far. I should make more. I need more bulk chain, though. (Psst: which one is your favorite? Which one is the most like what you usually wear?)

I like to take things to the next level when I can. Sarah's husband is Australian, a country renowned for some incredible gemstone deposits. And while a stone like mookaite might not be wedding-appropriate, opal sure is! It took some hunting to find opal that was 1) from Australia, 2) of decent quality, and 3) not ridiculously expensive. I eventually found these beautiful rondelles on BeadWalla:

To make things more interesting visually, I paired them with some snowy/milky quartz (which I should still do a geo-shopping post on, yikes) and some sterling beads for spacers. Overall the effect is regular without being too dull or repetitive—or that's how I'd like to think it is!

But more importantly, Sarah was happy with how it came out! (Also, I was freaked the hell out and, like, quadruple-checked the count and the digits, ahahah.) Like I've said before, I'd rather make people happy than have raw sales. Do I think that a math or science nerd needs to have a jewelry collection that's exclusively STEM-related? No way! I'm happy to be that one special piece of jewelry in someone's jewelry box. I hope to be part of many weddings to come. :)

Custom Piece: William-Hazens Equation Bracelet/Anklet

This was a custom order from a long while ago. I swore that I had already written it up here, but apparently I never did. (This is before I started sinking my life and to-do lists into HabitRPG, I guess.) I know I put it off for a a week or two, as I consider it bad juju to blog about a gift before it reaches its giftee. I guess the craziness of a Swedish test at the time caught up with me.

Anyway!

Kris, who works at a small start-up, was tasked with shopping for a thank-you gift for their summer intern, a sustainable engineering student in Seattle (since she worked for them for free). Kris spotted one of my irrational memory wire cuff bracelets and sent me a message about the possibility of a custom order. I jumped at the chance because I love custom orders. I love the ideas other people have about math in jewelry and/or the challenge of working within a specific color palette. This piece had both.

As this intern had worked quite a bit with water pressure, Kris suggested the William–Hazens equation of pressure drop and shades of blue reminiscent of water. The equation actually worked out to a near-perfect bracelet length in both the numerator and the denominator—one of the constraints of using physical constants or ratios is that you don't have much wiggle room because you have very specific (and limited) numbers to work with, so I was relieved to see there wouldn't be much fudging with lengths. In addition to the blues, I added freshwater pearls as a neutral and also to reinforce the water theme.

If you care to check this against the above link, the strand with freshwater pearls represents the numerator (the three blue beads are the spacers between each digit). The strand with blue lace agate represents the denominator (Czech glass as the spacers).

The real fun in this piece came with representing variables. I've never had to do that before—usually I work with pure numbers. But the whole thing seemed empty without any variables, so I went a little more abstract with this piece. Those heretofore unexplained large glass beads represent those variables, and the faceted blue glass you see next to them function like carats, indicating the variable is raised to a power (a power spelled out by the rest of the beads). So (large bead)(faceted rondelle)(smaller beads) means: X (large) ^ (raised to the power of; faceted rondelle) 1.85 (smaller beads).

Hopefully that made some sense!

As I said earlier, things worked out to near-perfect length, but only near perfect. I know personal preference on this varies, but I cannot stand loosey-goosey bracelets. Lawyer Mom and I have wrists that are about the same size but anything I make for her is a good two inches longer than what I make for myself, and this came out more towards the Lawyer Mom end of the spectrum. I added a few links on the end so that it can be worn as a snug-fitting anklet or loose-fitting bracelet, whatever the mood and preference.

Fortunately everything in this equation is multiplied (except the ratio itself). As you all recall from math class, when two numbers are written next to each other (ideally in parentheses), then you should multiply them. I didn't have to come up with something else to represent addition or subtraction, and I think two strands is a great way to represent a fraction/division. Maybe I should invest in some neutrally-colored "+" and "–" beads in case of just such an emergency?

All in all, this was a fun project. While I don't know if I'll be revisiting the William–Hazens equation specifically, I'm definitely going to be cruising more equations and ratios to see what I can come up with!