08/24/2026
From Our Hands to Yours: A Vendor Spotlight Series
Molly Schermer of Temper & True has been one of a few craft vendors at the Staunton Farmers Market since 2022. She creates uniquely textured and designed, functional jewelry that adorns folks of all types (she loves making jewelry sized for people who think “they can’t fit into jewelry”) and leans into the sense of community that the Market has cultivated over the last 33 years. “I love being with farmers, who are doing the best, hardest work,” she says about her Market experience. “People come for veggies, and, ‘oh, I can get a ring!’”
Molly’s start in jewelry making wasn’t planned. In 2016, she was at the John Campbell Folk School in North Carolina focused on blacksmithing for a three month work study. When a blacksmithing class she had her eye on was full, Molly pivoted to a forging for jewellers class with Tom and Kay Patterson (who gifted her the first of many anvils). Somewhere in her studio she has the copper scraps from that first delve into what has become her livelihood. For a while, Molly continued to bop around North Carolina craft schools, staying with a chairmaker who gave her the beloved red toolbox signature to her Market displays and collecting tools with plans to be a blacksmith. In Maine, she worked with a metalsmith who taught her about small batch production and the model of a single person business. Molly made some more jewelry, including stone setting, and got her start in the market scene.
When she ended up in Staunton, Molly started making jewelry in the evenings from her basement- mostly presents for her sisters and mom. She was experimenting with copper, bronze, and brass while blacksmithing at a spot in Charlottesville that taught her lots about business, production, and markets. She also worked in restaurants downtown, where she met former SFM vendor Norm Schaffer and worked for him, commuting to the farm “on a sweet little cruiser bike.” One of her first pieces was a working hoop earring, which lay flat and enabled her to use ear protection while blacksmithing. A neighbor of hers, who always heard her tinkering, convinced Molly to charge him for a pair of her earrings, which she acknowledges as a turning point in her journey. Valuing her work, which was initially difficult, is something she takes pride in. She enjoys “reconnect[ing] people with the actual cost of labor,” particularly when kids ask about her prices; they are all chosen with intention and consideration of her need to make a living, amongst other factors.
As her work gained more attraction, she felt less drawn to the other jobs she had around town. Molly credits her friends for being supportive of her early endeavors, and it was friends of hers who commissioned her first engagement ring. Her commissions are “special things to mark occasions.” Molly recently melted her mom’s wedding ring into a smaller, signet style piece. She also loves working on wedding bands for clients who come back after she’s created their engagement ring.
The Temper & True studio where we meet is a recent expansion of the work Molly has been doing for 10 years, an exciting new home for her work and rich with possibilities for the future. She hopes to host workshops she’s been teaching in her studio, and she’d love to do work with more time, energy, and skill. Some ideas she has: engraving, obscure stone setting, and casting. Right now, she’s got an array of earthy toned stones for her Fall collection, including funky royston ribbon turquoise and azurite. I also got a sneak peak at the ring for her sweetheart Murvel, which was made with a handmade stamp based on a book she’s been pouring over. His speciality as an antique curator is apparent throughout the studio, with a repurposed watchmaker bench serving as her jeweller’s bench, a fabulous anvil (which are good investments), and so much more. It’s impossible not to notice her treasures; one of the first things that drew the two of them together.
