Care and sizing

Measuring a ring at home

1. Cut a strip of paper about 5mm wide. Not string — string stretches and you will come out a size too big.
2. Wrap it round the base of the finger, snug but able to turn.
3. Push it over the knuckle before you mark it. If it will not go over, the knuckle is the size you need, not the finger.
4. Mark where it overlaps, lay it flat, and measure to the mark in millimetres.
5. Find that number below.

Measure at the end of the day with warm hands — fingers are meaningfully smaller first thing and in January. A wide band needs half a size up on the same finger, because there is more of it touching you.

First resize on anything I made is free within a year. After that it is £25, and I will not resize a bezel-set ring by more than two sizes without remaking the shank — the setting distorts and the stone works loose.

Looking after silver

Tarnish is not dirt. It is silver reacting with sulphur in the air, and the fastest cure is wearing the thing — skin keeps it bright. A piece that lives in a drawer will always look worse than one that lives on you.

• Use an impregnated polishing cloth. Two minutes, no water. That is the whole method for 95% of pieces.
• Not toothpaste. It is abrasive enough to leave a haze of fine scratches that a cloth cannot then remove.
• Never silver dip on an oxidised piece. It strips the deliberate black out of stamping and texture in about four seconds and it does not come back without a torch.
• Take it off for swimming. Chlorine attacks the copper in sterling, and the sea will find any join that is not quite right.
• Store it dry and separately. The pouch it came in, in a drawer. Not the bathroom, not a bowl on the windowsill with everything else scratching it.

Looking after pearls

Freshwater pearls are nacre — layers of calcium carbonate laid down by a mussel. That makes them softer than any stone on this page and easily damaged by things that would not touch silver.

• On last, off first. Perfume, hairspray and suncream all etch the surface. Get dressed, then put the pearls on.
• Never an ultrasonic cleaner. It will shake the nacre off the bead and there is no repair. Jewellers do this to people's pearls by accident every week.
• Never silver dip. It dissolves nacre outright. If a piece is pearl and silver together, use a cloth on the metal and keep the liquid away from it.
• Wipe with a soft damp cloth after wearing, then let it dry flat before it goes away.
• Restring anything knotted every couple of years if you wear it weekly. Silk stretches and greys, and it always breaks somewhere inconvenient. I restring for £45 including the silk.

Anything not covered here — ask me. I would rather answer than have you guess with something that cannot be undone.