First, those errings are amazing Silvia! I have made lots of jewelry in my time, but it is more in the style of old west Indian jewelry. Now. I was just going to sneak in here and change my profile photo, but then this thread gone awry caught my interest. Now that I have donned fresh undies after reading this entire thread, I must step up and toss a bucket of hog slop on the nonsense about ranch girls and jewelry wearing. Growing up on a Rocky Mountain ranch I didn't wear any jewelry until I was a teen and had Indian friends that made jewelry. My favorite is Hopi silver. I still have a handmade loop link silver chain that I still wear on occasion with different handmade pendants. I have several of my own make bone and wood pendants as well as bear teeth and gold nuggets (I mined myself). Now to set the record straight, I can only tell you what jewelry I wore on the ranch, I don't pretend to be knowledgable on what other working ranch women wear or wore. I nearly always wore a necklace chain or leather strap around my neck. For a pendant, I had a single blade knife made in a deer antler holder. It was so handy for everything from cutting baling twine to castrating young bulls. How did I wear a necklace safely? Stand by Codie man for a revelation that will knock the fake alligator right off your dancing boots. But not yet! While nearly every ranch woman I knew wore a ring or rings, I did for a short time. My ring, a silver band with turquoise and coral inlay made by a Zuni silversmith, got caught unclogging a seeder port and when I pulled my hand out quickly it buried the ring deep into my knuckle. I cut it off with dikes. A similar ring incident happened when I worked construction, so after that, I have a no ring policy. Now my silver necklace I quit wearing when I became a radio broadcast engineer. It was probably perfectly safe if I wore it ranch style, but there was no good reason to wear it that way. Wearing silver a great conductor of electricity and especially around amplitude modulated RF energy was not a good idea. Wearing a leather strap around my neck was just not cool for off ranch work, so no more wearing necklaces until recent years. So how did this real working ranch girl wear a necklace safely? I wore a long chain so the pendant, my knife in a bone holder, was safely held secure in my bra. Earrings safely? No one should have their head that close to anything that earrings would get caught. Not a good idea! I had my belt buckle get caught more than anything, so I quit wearing a belt except when carrying my revolver with its custom made "jewelry" bone and silver grips. I wore far more jewelry as a ranch and mountain girl than I have in recent years as a city girl living on the edge of town. Anyway carry on Syliva and let's see more of your beautiful work, suitable for ranch, rodeo, or dance. Nothing like dangling handmade earrings for doing a little two-stepping. Just avoid cowboys with beards that prefer to waltz.
Silvia Here is the last jewelry I made from bone and wood scrapes. They all have holes for chains, except the heart with the arrow that I never finished. The "spoon" part is all that goes on the chain. The other is just a display holder that looks awesome with the chain around it. The "spoons" are just decoration, just slightly concave, and based on my RANCHER Indian Great Grandmother that had a spoon pendant necklace for dipping her snus. Crude but great for wearing with leather, especially hand-worked buckskins. I will see if I can find the photo with the big loop handmade Hopi silver chain attached. My work is no doubt too dangerous for our resident wrangler western ranch historian (SIGH), but I have always lived on the side of danger. Side note: My mother always wore dresses and skirts for ranch wear, never pants until my father died and she sold the ranch and she moved to town at age 65. Sorry Co deee, but your expertise on western ranch women's attire reeks of apothecary horseboy knowledge.
QUOTE From CODY "I've researched it online and found that women on farms/ranches can like a necklace with some type of farm or ranch thing hanging from it and the same goes for a bracelet. Turquoise is very, very popular, as a jewelry item. I've seen some ladies at rodeos wearing that." Faye: I researched it online, hahaha! I have seen ladies at rodeo wearing that, hahaha! Yep, I am busted. I want pot metal tractor shaped painted earrings made in China hanging on my ear lodes, none of those big city or reservation handmade gemstone and precious metal sissy girly earrings. Sterling silver, heck no give me pot metal mass stamped out farm equipment or animals. Nothing like a Holstein pendant from Beijing, China dangling from your neck. Cody: "But, living here in northern Colorado, all I have to do is go to two different retail farm/ranch stores in our area. The one farm/ranch store (chain) sells baby chicks and rabbits." Faye: You see Siliva you need to visit a farm/ranch store that sells chicks before you dare wear that Stetson. I never read where you said your jewelry was "cowgirl" jewelry so I am still beside myself laughing and trying to piece together this thread about your handmade earrings.
I actually went to a feed store last week to get some bedding material for the little un's hamster. I was wearing "girly earrings" and now I'm surprised they let me in. I'll have to get some John Deere tractor earrings before I can go in again and hold my head up. They weren't selling chickens or bunnies, though, so maybe it was OK.
Oh, the horror of it all! No hats except the boss lady and check out her earrings! One with a headscarf and sunglasses, love it! Watch the video to see how it is done girl style on an Eastern Washington woman-run ranch.
The day before, I was riding a Hog. As long as I'm wearing my Harley earrings, they do let me in biker bars.
Cody, it’s been fun but here you are, in a battle with the ladies about something that ONLY the ladies have any clue about. Now, go out and buy your wife a squash blossom and beg her forgiveness for trying to tell women about what women do and do not do. Don’t feel bad. God didn’t give ANY man enough information to figure out a lady and in my book, I thank Him daily for that. It keeps life interesting.
Okie Dokie Cowboy, I guess in the last 32 years drug store cowgirls have changed their taste in earrings and jewelry, but the working and former working ones I know which include one such as myself, still love our handmade artisan jewelry. If earrings don't dangle, I won't wear them.