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Kate Wood

About Kate

Hand crafted jewellery

Whether you’re looking for a gift for a special birthday or anniversary, or a treat ‘just because’, I hope you’ll find something you love here.

Discover beautiful handmade gemstone jewellery, from everyday stud earrings to ethereal pieces to complement your wedding dress, subtly dramatic necklaces to bracelets you won’t want to take off.

Every piece is made by hand with care and obsessive attention to detail in my Bristol studio. It’s a real honour to create jewellery that makes you feel beautiful and that will be cherished for years to come.

 Precious Materials

I only work with precious metals and natural semi-precious and precious gemstones. I love sourcing natural gemstone beads in subtle and unusual colours. The majority are hand-cut in Jaipur, India’s ‘Pink City’.  Pearls are carefully selected for their smooth surface and natural lustre.

I use nickel-free sterling silver and gold vermeil, as well as 18ct yellow gold.  My gold vermeil pieces are made from sterling silver, plated with a thick layer of 23.7ct yellow gold or 18 carat rose gold.

Spinel and sapphire beads
Photo of close up of model wearing sapphire earrings.

Commissioning a special piece

The wonderful thing about handmade jewellery is that it can easily be personalised and I love creating bespoke pieces in my style.

If you see something you like but would prefer a different coloured stone, or a different length for example, do get in touch and I can make something special just for you.

Many of my pieces can be made to order in 9 carat or 18 carat gold – just email me for a quote.

My process

The natural world is an abiding obsession, and I can often be found crouching to examine the form of a flower, or admiring the lichen on a branch.  This macro view of the botanical world definitely influences my jewellery.  I’m looking to reflect the balance and irregularity of nature when I create what I see as little wearable sculptures.

I might make a series of rough sketches when inspiration strikes, but primarily I design through making, working directly with the materials, experimenting with different techniques, adding and subtracting until the form is ‘right’.

I want my pieces to be calm, natural and balanced, and achieving this apparent effortlessness can be deceptively challenging.  I often start with a complicated idea and end up with something much simpler.  The skill is in knowing when to stop.

Photo of Kate Wood's garden jewellery studio

My journey

I’ve always loved to make things by hand – as a child I was always sketching and doodling, and my weekend treat would be a trip to the bead shop to stock up on crystals and glass seed beads for my jewellery creations.

As a self-taught jeweller, my career path wasn’t conventional.  After university I worked as a museum curator and continued to create jewellery in my spare time, never believing that I could make a living doing what I loved.

Little by little I gained confidence and developed my skills, and from selling in London markets I graduated to jewellery galleries and outgrew my living room workspace. I spent five happy years at Cockpit Arts studios in Holborn, a hive of creativity where I was lucky enough to work alongside some incredibly talented makers.

I’ve taken part in some wonderful exhibitions such as the Crafts Council’s Origin fair, and sold at trade shows in London, Munich and New York.  I’m really proud that you can now find my jewellery in some incredible boutiques and craft galleries around the world.

During the first lockdown we built a cedar-clad studio in our back garden in Bristol.  It’s a dream space to create my work – compact and filled with everything I need to make my jewellery, built with love and surrounded by plants.

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