Setting a small baguette stone with Machi de Waard

Course Aims

Have you had your eye on a baguette cut stone but didn’t know how to make a setting for it? Then this course will show you one option for making a setting out of a single piece of wire, how to work out the size of that wire, how to mark it out and how to sit the stone in it for setting. You will then make either a ring or a pendant. Afterwards, you will set the stone using a punch to create a finished piece of wearable jewellery.

Students will learn one way of setting a baguette stone. This is how to make a setting for a baguette cut stone into a solid piece of silver with no solder joins. We will then use the setting to make a piece of jewellery (ring or pendant). Finally, students will set the stone using a punch.

Experience level required:

Some experience necessary – must already know how to use basic hand tools and know how to solder. It would definitely be best if you have at least done some type of stone setting before. If in doubt, please email the tutor to enquire (machidewaard@gmail.com)

Machi is a designer/jeweller who has been working in her studio in Reading, Berkshire for more than 18 years making modernist jewellery in silver and gold. From 2010 to 2011, she was Jeweller in Residence at South Hill Park Arts Centre in Bracknell. In 2021, her book, written with fellow jeweller Janet Richardson, Silver Jewellery Making, was published by award-winning craft publisher Search Press. Combining her studio practice with teaching, Machi teaches jewellery making in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. Her work is regularly shown at galleries and exhibitions in the UK. In August 2023, Machi was awarded a Masters in Jewellery and Metal from the prestigious Royal College of Art. In 2024 and 2025, Machi won an award for her work from the Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council. In 2025, she was awarded the Freedom of Goldsmiths’ Company.

Equipment

The usual assortment of hand tools, especially: dividers, saw frame, and saw blades. Please bring parallel pliers as they are needed and JASSO only has so many. Please remember your glasses!!

Materials:

Silver and baguette cubic zirconia stones. Students are very welcome to bring along their own materials and projects they are working on that are related. Bringing extra silver is advisable so students have flexibility in making a pendant or ring with their setting.

I will bring silver for the setting and an appropriate CZ. The cost for the setting silver and one CZ is £8 per student. I will also have extra materials for making the setting into a ring or pendant, which will be priced per weight (approx. £4 for a ring, for example). Students are welcome to pay in cash or I will have a card payment option.
If students bring some of their own material, it is £8 for the setting silver and one CZ. If they want to make a ring it will be about £12 (total) but they can also use their own silver. If they want to make a ring, I would advise bringing 1.5mm square wire or somewhere between 1.5-1.8mm round wire for the shank.

How course will be taught:

A combination of demonstrations, Q&A, discussion, and making. The focus is on learning how to make one type of baguette setting and then how to set the stone.