Step-by-Step Jewelry Workshop by Nicola Hurst (Interweave Press $24.95 US) takes a multi-technique approach as it covers a variety of jewelry methods, primarily focusing on metal work.
While flipping through the pages of this book, I couldn't help but get a feeling of intense deja vu. Many years ago after I realized I wanted to get serious about learning how to make jewelry, I enrolled in a jewelry making class in Winter Park, Florida through the city's adult education/vocational system.

It was an 18-week class, 3 hours a week, and I took it twice. It covered mainly metal fabrication and soldering techniques, with a little bit of wire and beading thrown in. Like this book, it was designed to introduce the novice to basic jewelry design and constructions techniques of all kinds.

That experience was a wonderful way for me to learn all the basics, and I saw them all in the pages of this book: polishing, filing, sawing, soldering, forging, and much more. Now, of course, this is not the same as taking a live class in a workshop full of equipment like a rolling mill, but for those who do not have the opportunity to take the same kind of class that I did, this is pretty darn close.

Along with basic how-to techniques, there is an 8 page spread that discusses and demonstrates design methods as well as how to bring your design idea from sketch pad to fabricated metal.

Lots of full-color photographs help show as the text tells you how to learn the techniques and then use them to make a number of jewelry projects, but this is mainly a technique-heavy book more so than a project book, though I did count 12 projects in the 128 page text.

My only warning is that beaders will be disappointed with the small beading section, which seems kind of thrown in there at the end. But, honestly, since I took the class that basically mirrors this book, we also only got a basic introduction to bead stringing and knotting, so considering the concept of the book, that didn't really surprise or concern me. It is obviously designed to give readers a broad overview of jewelry making, with an emphasis on metal work.