disaster

OK that is a bit melodramatic.
I was in my studio experimenting. I really want to be able to make an ingot mold out of charcoal. I was also testing to see just how much silver my small butane torch can melt. (I have a bigger torch but I never use it as it does melt even when you don't want it to.) So I had melted quite a bit of my scrap when I knocked the hot melting piece of metal on to the floor and it shattered into millions of tiny tiny bits of twisted silver.
Unbelievable.
I should have taken a photo once I had gathered all the bits.
because you should have seen it.
It was like broken glass. Really unbelievable.
Next time I am definitely going to be a lot more careful.

Cool tools

This Post is dedicated to my husband who has made me some really cool tools to help with my jewellery making.

Joans Ring

I have been commissioned to make a ring for Joan (My mother in-law) So I spent the day, yesterday making some square wire for the shank.
Isn't it amazing how much more beautiful a piece of wire is when you made it yourself?
Joan has chosen a faceted Rose quartz stone. Still deciding how I am going to set it.

Break

I am having a frustrating break at the moment.
I have a guest for a month and my work room is right above the guest room.
It would be way too noisy to make anything I want to make right now. (which involves a hammer). but watch this space because I have a load of ideas going on in my head which I hope to turn into reality.

Bashed Pendant

I read somewhere that you could use charcoal to make an ingot for wire.

All you do is drill a hole in the charcoal melt the silver then pour it into the hole and voila an ingot.Well I tried with some of my scrap. It never really worked (I dont think I can make the silver hot enough.)

I got a sort of tear drop shape.

So I played with it (and my hammer)

This is what I came out with.

Jampanese thingy

Here is the other thing I was making.

I wanted to etch it. but reading all the literature on how to etch I realise that I am probably not responsible enough to handle such toxic things.

So I drew random squiggles with one of the engraving attachments on my drill. This gave me a very subtle effect which I like.

It should have a loop on the bottom for the leather to go through. But I just could not make it stay there. So I ditched that idea for the moment. Now what to make next?

Lazy weekend

Yesterday we all went off and swam the midmar mile.
The weather was perfect.
I really enjoyed my swim. So much that I think I had my worst time ever. I dont know what my time was because instead of setting the stop watch I changed the time on my watch. So when I looked to see how long it took me it was about 80 hours.
We had a picnic afterwards. It was a lovely day.

Last night we had a major storm which flooded my work room. So instead of making jewellery I had a major clean up. organised some of the chaos that defines me.

The weather has been awful today I feel sorry for all those people who swam the mile today.
Andrew heard that the weather was the worst weather for midmar in twenty years. I am glad I swam yesterday.