It is better to design your jewellery beforehand and than cut your stone according to design specifications. But if you think you will decide your design as you go along while carving,  it is better to sketch a coarse shape for your iris.

Decide the thickness of your iris. The width and the length will be as large as your piece of rough permits you.    I used an diamond circular saw to slice my sugilite stone. 

Using your sketch as a guide, start giving a shape to your iris with corborundum wheels of different thicknesses.  Your flower need not  be an exact replica of a  natural flower.  You are just suggesting  the shape of an iris.  

Using different shape carving tools I start with 325 mesh diamond powder to coarsely shape my piece. Sometimes I use a piece of sand paper rapped on the carving tools to smooth the stone.

Using  the same  shape  carving tools,     I  switch    to 600,  1 200, 3 000, 8 000 mesh diamond powder.  When I start using 1 200  mesh powder  I also start  using hard wood carving heads.

As the final step you can use even  finer diamond powder such as 14 000, 50 000 mesh. With these powders I usually use hard   felt  buffs  and  as  last  step  I  used  leather  buffs.  I mixed a little   LindeA   with  diamond powder when I  carved this sugilite. 

When manufacturing the jewellery, with the gold leaves and some melee diamonds as accent stones your iris will look beautiful. If you would like to see the finished jewellery in my jewellery page, please click here.

Today, I offered you just a drop of water from the huge sea of knowledge ......