Welcome to McKinley And Moth, I hope you enjoy looking around.
McKinley And Moth is a small business, selling unique, handmade, nature inspired silver jewellery and other small items, based just outside the beautiful city of York.
All McKinley And Moth products have been designed and handmade by me, Shona Leslie.
ABOUT McKINLEY AND MOTH
I live on the outskirts of York with the countryside on my doorstep, perfect! as my main influence is British wildlife from majestic stags to delicate moths and butterflies.
I love walking in my local area and pottering in the garden, where I gather plenty of inspiration for my work.
My jewellery starts life as a drawing sometimes a simple sketch sometimes a more refined drawing. I love researching through either old nature books or my own photos adding in a little touch of imagination to create original drawings of the animals, insects or flowers that I wish to make into a piece of jewellery.
A BIT ABOUT ME AND MY PROCESS
I work mainly with sheet Sterling silver and I cut my designs out by hand using a very fine saw blade in a jewellers saw. A lot of people think that my jewellery is cut by laser, but I love saw piercing each piece by hand and whilst some find it a frustrating process I find it quite relaxing! Some of my pieces take minutes to pierce out others a whole day or more.
Once the basic form of the piece has been cut out, I will then decide whether the piece works well as a simple silhouette or whether more detail is needed.
To add the detail to the piece of jewellery, I sketch the original drawing onto the silver and then use burrs and files and my hammer action hand-piece to draw back into the metal resulting in each piece being totally unique.
The final results are bold and original with a certain amount of realism.
If you have any questions you can contact me by clicking the button below.
