Haw haw. I know, not actually that exciting, but as the punning title suggests these are my first experiments with the sterling silver wire I got for my birthday. Fossil thingy on the left is wrapped in 0.6mm (22ga, I think); pretty, clever hand blown bead on the right, from Shakespeare Glass in Taunton, England, is wrapped in 0.8mm (20ga, if I've got my numbers right.). The bead has a green core with clear glass with very thin horizontal blue stripes around the outside, the upshot of which is to make the bead look green with blue edges, and for once that has almost come out in the picture. Huzzah!

I discovered that:
1) Half hard sterling is WAYYY springy. And a bit tougher than the silver plated wire I'm used to. This stuff will make great jump rings, but it's a bit stiff for wire wrapping. That said, I reckon that fossil's the neatest bit of wrapping I've ever done - perhaps because I had to fight the wire so hard to get it to stay put!
2) I really, really, REALLY need to file the edges of my pliers (see the dents in the spiral dangle on the clever blue/green bead).