Red Moon Artisans
Roseanna Freitag

Fair-trade stone and fossil jewelry 

I create all my jewelry at my home in Vermont using fair trade material I aquire from friends and family in Mexico and South America. I learned the technique of single stitch macrame while living in Guatemala. It is a common medium there but not as well known here in my native state of VT. On a simple homemade loom I weave bracelets necklaces and medecine bags stitch by stitch incorporating fairly traded gemstones,fossils and amber. I create all original designs geared towards children, women and men. I will demonstrate this technique of weaving single stitch macrame during the event.

I have been creating and selling jewelry here in Vermont for the past 15 years. I also create pendants and earrings from fair trade sourced gemstones and fossils using wire wrapping tools and techniques. I learned my wire wrapping techniques traveling abroad as well as from classes taken at league of NH craftsmen. I use mostly silver plated wire in a variety of gauges. The gemstones are all fair trade sourced from individual lapidariests I know from my time South of the border as well as from my sons father who is South American and sources stones such as rhodochrosite and blue onyx to incorporate in my jewelry creations. A central focus of my business is to use material that is as sustainably sourced as possible and also as socially responsible. For example the fossils I use in my wire and macrame designs are from Palenque Chiapas and are purchased from a local Mayan man whose family I have known for 20 years. He finds chunks of 480 million year old sea reef fossil in dry river beds and then smooths and cuts them on his lapidary wheel. I purchase directly from him paying a price he sets that is a living wage for his area. This type of sourcing of material is central to what my business all about. To name some of the gemstones I use; Mexican Fire Opal, obsidian, limestone fossil, petrified wood,amber, jade, chrysocholla, fluorite, onyx, rhodochrosite, amazonite, colcatanita, sodalite, azurite( to name a few)... I provide written geological and energetic information with the stones as well as a slipknot cord necklace I tie on site for pendants or silver plated chains.