Made by hand in Frome, Somerset
One pair of hands, and about three weeks.
Everything here is made by Nell Ashworth, at one bench, in the order it was asked for. Nothing is cast in a factory and finished here — that is a different trade and it is not this one.
Three weeks is typical. Around Christmas it's five, and I'll tell you before you commit — not after.
On the shelf
Ready to post
Finished pieces, in the drawer, going out by tracked post the next working day. What you see is what there is.
21 days, start to finish
How a commission works
You ask, she draws, you approve, she makes it. Half up front, and never before you have seen a drawing and a price.
The drawer
The stones she works with
Eight of them, each with its hardness and an honest note on what will damage it — including the one she will happily make for you while telling you not to wear it every day.
Remodelling
Her stones, something you will wear
The highest-value thing this studio does, and the one that takes the most care. Stones come out of a piece nobody wears, get checked, and go into something designed around them.
Old stones chip when they come out. You will hear the risk on your specific stone before anything is unset — and sometimes the answer is to leave it exactly as it is.
Afterwards
What happens once it is yours
A piece from this bench comes back to it. Resizing, re-polishing and re-blackening anything she made is free for as long as she is working.
Alterations and repairs
Resizing, restringing, tightening a stone that has started to move. Every price published.
“Handmade means waiting. Pretending otherwise just creates an angry customer three weeks later.”