The Secret Garden

Vintage shape, modern comfort. Lena wanted the look of a 1920s mounting but the feel of a ring she never has to take off. We combined an open filigree under-gallery with a comfort-fit inside, set an emerald-cut moissanite in a corner-halo, and kept the milgrain edge delicate rather than heavy. People keep asking her where she found an antique. That was the whole point.

The center is a 6x8mm emerald cut in four corner prongs at 1.1mm, with a corner halo of eight 1.3mm rounds. Emerald cuts show every bit of sloppy metal, so the seat has to be flat and the prongs have to land on the corners exactly. The band is 14k yellow gold over a sterling core, 5.2 grams finished, warm on the outside and stiffer underneath.

The under-gallery fought me. It is pierced filigree, cut by hand with a 4/0 saw blade after casting, in a scroll pattern drawn from a 1923 catalogue I keep on the bench. Fourteen openings, each under a millimeter across at the narrowest point. My first pass broke two bridges because I cut the scroll too tight where it crosses.

Milgrain is where vintage work usually goes wrong. A heavy wheel puts a beaded wall around the stone that reads as costume jewelry. We used a 0.35mm wheel and ran it once, lightly, along the outer rails only.

Comfort fit means the inside of the band is domed rather than flat, ground in on a wheel and polished with a felt bob so the edge that touches skin is soft. The tradeoff is that a comfort fit band is thinner at the base, so later sizing is a half size job, not two sizes. She came back after a year because the milgrain on the right rail had smoothed where her hand rubs the steering wheel. We re-cut it. 6 weeks.