New Enameled Pendants

Here are a couple of enamel pendants - I've been playing with some new techniques this week.

This one has lots of millefiore and stringer, and I raked through the hot stringer with a mandrel. The pendant's hole is a little off center, but for some reason it is way more obvious in pics - maybe the extreme macro (?) than it is in real life.

More millefiore and raking, and this one got a bit overfired. It used to be a pretty lilac color, and now it is a deep metallic olive green - but I like this distressed look!

I painted this pendant with liquid enamel, and then sifted orange enamel onto the wet liquid. Once it dried, I placed a millefiore disc in the middle, and layered some stringer randomly over the top, then fired.

Baptism by Fire

As you know, we headed south to St. Petersburg, Florida, this weekend for the Painting With Fire Workshop. Nothing like spending 20 hours in the car in order to go to a 4-hour class! We jewelry artisans are a dedicated (and crazy) bunch...

We finally found the salon where the workshop was being held, in a beautiful, artsy section of St. Petersburg. This is the back of the studio where we played Sunday afternoon: those 2 garage doors open to provide wonderful ventilation courtesy of the sea breeze. Perfect!
 

This is the table, set up with workstations for all the students:

That's my workstation at the bottom left, with my apron on back of the chair, and my visor on the table. I needed my visor (in addition to my glasses) in order to see well enough to get the beads on the mandrel. Because I am seriously vision-impaired.

Oh, yeah - and note that Barbara put the first aid kit right next to me - almost as if she knew me!

Closeup of my workstation:

Here is our lovely and gracious host, Barbara Lewis, at the end of the table, doing a bead demo:

Some of the enamel colors we were able to play with:

Some of my classmates, hard at work fun:

 There was a lot of wonderful artwork displayed in the salon, sculptures, glass, paintings, baskets, and more - but I want you to enjoy the painting which is hanging at the far end of the worktable. I fell in love with this lady walking her poodles, and I even named her "Bagel Knees," because her knees look like the bagels we had at our hotel's continental breakfast that morning!

Here is a shot of my bead pan, filled with vermiculite and my cooling beads, as well as some of the enamel colors I was sharing with Kris:

Here is my bead haul from the workshop - some great beads, and some not-so-great ones. But I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and came home with almost everything I need to sit down and start making these colorful enamelled pieces on my own!

And alas, I did NOT have an injury-free weekend.

About halfway through the class, I learned that fire makes metal beads HOT.

Nice singe marks on top of that blister, huh? This was taken almost immediately after I accidentally touched the bead.

Here is the finger this morning:

It's a nice, deep second degree burn, with a huge area of 1st degree burn around it. And the worst part? It's my iPad-tappin' finger. Really put a crimp in my game play for a few days....

And after the class, we got to see Barbara's brand new Florida studio - almost ready to open! It is in a beautiful area, and is just going to be gorgeous!

"Raku" in the Metal Studio

Sunday was Metal Studio day again - we have such fun playing on these days! I wish we could get together more often.

This time, we decided to tackle an enameling technique known as "Raku;" it bears some similarities to the raku pottery process, as I'll explain below.

I decided to use the process to create several pairs of fold-formed copper earrings. These start off with a large sheet of 24g copper, which I then cut into 1-inch squares.

Next comes the folding - each square is annealed, then placed in the vise and manhandled until folded, with multiple annealings in between each fold to keep the copper soft enough to work with.

Here is one pair of earrings after all the folds are placed and re-opened:

The dark dusky color is firescale from the multiple annealings.

The earrings were then pickled for a long time to remove the firescale;

The acidity of the pickle solution actually removes copper molecules while removing the firescale, leaving a matte finishe, so I then took steel wool to both sides of each earring to get a nice bright shiny surface again (although I certainly could have left them matte!) And this is the point where holes are placed for the earwires - don't forget to do this before firing!

The firing process is next - 2 firings with clear enamel to both sides was first, to get a good base coating.

Then comes the "raku" firing. These are the pieces, ready for firing (the raku color of enamel is in place):

That's my trusty Paragon kiln ramping up in the background - it has to get to around 1500 degrees before we can fire.

Now, more about the actual raku part of the process. Immediately upon removal from the hot hot kiln, the pieces must go into a container (with a lid!) containing shredded paper, so that they will ignite the paper and then smolder under the lid.

Here is the roasting pan we used, filled with shredded paper, ready for the emergence of the earrings from the kiln:

Isn't my nice clean roasting pan pretty?

So, the pieces are yanked from the kiln and unceremoniously dumped into the roasting pan, whereupon flames start shooting skyward (have the fire extinguisher nearby!!) I quickly clamped the lid on the pan, squelching all but a little of the escaping, acrid, stinky smoke, and ran for the door to get this smelly thing outdoors. OMG it stinks.

After about 70 minutes, the smoldering process ends and the roasting pan is cool to the touch, and we can continue.

Opening the lid:

The square burnt up thing is the screen that the trivets were on. Underneath there, buried in the paper, are the trivets and the earrings. And can you see that smoky yellow film on my pretty roasting pan?

My entire roasting pan is now coated in this horribly stinky sticky gunk. Several washings with baking soda and clorox (not together!) eventually removed it.

I fished out the trivets and earrings, and this is what I had:

You can sort of see some interesting, "oil-slick" coloration here, but really not much to look at, huh? Just square brown blobs, in my opinion. Then I started to think (which can be dangerous!) - if that nasty yellow slimy stuff is all over my roasting pan, it might just be on my earrings, too...

So I took the earrings to the sink and scrubbed them with dishwashing liquid, water, and an old toothbrush. And this is what was lurking underneath that film:

Now you can see the reds and blues and irridescent I normally associate with raku!

Each earring looks slightly different, but I could find 2 that closely resembled each other enough to pair them into 6 pairs. And the more I look at them, the more I love them!

This was time and labor intensive (and I had to clean that mess out of the roasting pan!); if I hadn't chosen to fold form the earrings it wouldn't have been nearly so time-consuming and difficult, but I really love the result!

Now the 12 earrings are piled on my work table, waiting for earwires. Sometimes the very last, finishing step (attaching a clasp, anyone?) is the one I procrastinate on. Well, that, plus it was almost 9 PM by the time we finished the firings, and I wasn't hanging around to place earwires - I wanted to go home by then!

Shedding Dog Hair is Sweeping the Nation!

I apologize for being a terrible blogger- am currently putting in 50-60 hours a week at the shop (it takes a lot to keep it running; I don't just get to sit around all day making jewelry!), and there's the Etsy shop,  Facebook, Bailey and all his social activities, and Gumball, and just trying to have a little time for sleeping and eating. How does anyone keep up with everything? I could seriously use a cabana boy!

I haven't had much time at all to make jewelry over the past month, but have done a little bit of metalwork, primarily - this cuff is new since I last blogged:

as is this pendant, which includes a piece of my own fused glass:

I have a made a few pairs of earrings:

and

Both of these pairs of earrings sold so quickly that I have decide to deviate from my own OOAK rule, and recreate both of these pairs, and list them on Etsy. When I get some free time!

And speaking of deviating from my OOAK rule - I made an enamelled copper pendant sometime last year:

it was my own creative take on the South Carolina Palmetto Tree symbol. One of my customers fell in love with it, and her husband eventually came in and bought it for her as a birthday gift, but before he could give it to her (he kept it in the console of his car so she wouldn't find it) his car was broken into and the pendant was stolen. So he contacted me and asked if I could re-create it, and this time "add a little blue". So this was the result:

They both loved it, and so the husband asked if I could recreate the original. I was playing with techniques, and decided to solder the moon to the pendant instead of riveting it, and evidently the application of all that heat to the copper changed the way the copper took the enamel, because this was the result:

He loved it though, and has asked me to make another - but that one is way way on the back burner (he's in no hurry.

I brought home a kumihimo project that I desperately want to do JUST FOR ME. And I am slowly but surely completing a super-secret beadweaving project that just "came to me" one day about a month ago - I am determined to finish it (it's gorgeous), and I have a new rule (that I break almost everyday) that I absolutely canNOT start a new project until I finish another project, but this beadweaving thing is so tedious, that I need a break. So I am going to Kumihimo this weekend. At least, that is the plan. And we all know what happens when we make plans!

Oh - speaking of Facebook, Bailey and I (OK,. mostly I) were feeling a little goofy this morning. You see, Facebook makes these weird suggestions of pages it thinks you will like, I'm sure based on some complicated algorithms, but yesterday it suggested to me (on 2 separate occasions) that I join:

 and then:

Really?  Rock, Paper, and Scissors? In first place: WHY??
And in the second place - why are there groups of thousands of people who have joined each of these pages. Do they log onto Facebook and go, "Gosh, I sure do like scissors. I think I will go join a Scissors fan page so I can get ALL the latest scissors news?"

So, since the Rochambeau of Facebook suggestions was egging me on, Bailey and I have created a fan page for ..... drum roll please ...... Shedding Dog Hair. Go ahead - check it out. Click the Like button - Join us! We want to be the most popular idiots on Facebook!! Our motto, in case this will sway you, is Share the Link, Share the Love, Share the Hair.

Me and my iPad, round 3 (oh, and I've made some jewelry, too)

Well, the iPad and I have reached a detente.

Here are the things I like about it:

• its portability
• the web browser (and everything else, duh) boots immediately, unlike my laptop
• SplashID: a terrific app for securely storing passwords and other sensitive info. You can toggle between the browser and splashID whenever you need to look up or create a new password.
• Netflix: the iPad is perfect for streaming video content
• the games: great animation, resolution, graphics. But my left hand and wrist get sore from holding the iPad, because while it is light (though my case adds some weight and dimension to it) it isn't weightless. And I only have one hand free for game play. My case has a built-in stand, but it isn't the right angle, or I don't have the right height stand to set the whole unit on, in order to have it be at an accessible distance both for my eyes and my hands, so there you have it.
• my calendar app: very handy (and portable) - and also serves as a To-do list. But this app has drawbacks - it takes far longer to make an entry of any sort than it does to jot in down in a day-planner.
• readers: they are all terrific (Kindle, Nook, iBooks, etc) - well organized, back lit; just a pleasure for reading (but far heavier than a Kindle, and easy to inadvertently turn pages by touching the screen)
• the native Notes app: great for quickly jotting down grocery items, reminders, etc
• the photo album: I have finally loaded my entire jewelry portfolio onto the iPad. But this has drawbacks, too - you have to load all photos through iTunes on your laptop/PC, and it must do a full sync every time you want to add even one photo, and with 1850 photos and counting in the album, this takes a considerable amount of time (a full 30 minutes on my laptop to sync the photos).

In all honesty, most of my time on the iPad is spent playing games.

These are the features I find mediocre, and certainly NOT as functional as my laptop:

• document handling: I looked at at a number of apps, and finally chose the pricey DocsToGo, because it supports .doc, .ppt, .xls, and .pdf (possibly more, but these are the big 4 for me). It also must be synced though iTunes IF you want your documents to be hard-stored on your iPad. If you are OK with them being out in the cloud, and therefore only accessible if you have WiFi access, then that is another way to go. But I needed the ability to read and modify certain docs at any time, so iTunes it is. At least with the document file transfer mode in iTunes, you can quickly just add docs one or 2 at a time, without having to do a full document sync each time. 

My biggest issue with documents on the iPad is the #&$^% iPad keyboard. As I said above, I really need to hold the iPad to keep it steady AND at the correct focal length for my vision, and at the right angle. The built-in stand in my iPad case is great for reading, but not for using the keyboard or the touchscreen - the pressure of my fingers knocks it right over. So when reduced to one hand to type with, on that crazy iPad touch-screen keypad, I am basically typing with one finger (can't retrain my right hand to do the whole Qwerty keyboard by itself), so it takes forever to do data entry anyway, and add to this the fact that my fingers (which are truly average size) hit the wrong keys fully half the time, so I have to type very very slowly, and make a lot of corrections. So I try to do all document writing/editing on my laptop, and save the iPad document app for reading only. Not as efficient, but that's my solution.

• Zite: I am crazy about the idea of this customizable, intuitive news app. But I have to rate it as mediocre, because of the scrolling issues mentioned above - every touch of the finger opens something I didn't want to open. And even more annoying, the articles are often abridged articles from the web, and usually contain hyperlinks, and in order to access the links or the additional content, after clicking on the link, you get a pop-up asking if you want to open the content in Safari. This really seems like an annoying, duh feature to me - admittedly, Safari is the only browser I have on my iPad (does Zite know this?) - so of course, I want to open the link in Safari. Why do I have to click yes every damn time? Just open the link, please.  And since Zite seems to be a mini-search engine of sorts, much of the content in the individual sections is repetitive (for instance, Star Trek is a module I have added to my Zite, and while it has great content, this week it has had article after article from various sources wishing Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner a happy (80th!) birthday. So, happy, happy birthday Kirk and Spock.

Here are the features I try to avoid at all costs, and reserve for when I can be on the laptop

• web browsing: This is simply a comedy of errors on the iPad. I use the native Safari browser, but doubt any other browser would be different. And the same issues exist with many specialty web apps: The webpages are too small to be seen on the iPad, so you have to pinch to enlarge, and then scroll around endlessly, as each finger swipe sends you farther than you wanted to go. And in so many apps and webpages, so much of the content is clickable that if you touch the screen at all to try to slow down the scrolling or just to scroll a bit further, you are likely to accidentally click a hyperlink, and off you go...  And oddly enough, one of the worst apps for this accidental hyperlinking is AppAdvice, the iPad app guru - I can't scroll anywhere in that app without clicking into an article I didn't want to open. And if you touch anywhere near the bottom of the screen, you will likely be taken (inadvertently) to another section of the app
• e-mail: takes forever to read in the iPad - for the same reasons as the web-browsing. And to try to reply to e-mails from the iPad? Same issues with the keypad. Not a time-saver at all
• anything involving more than a few taps of the keyboard.

And here are features I personally find no use for, at least not yet:

• iPod: Yes, I've loaded my tunes onto the iPad. But there are far better options for listening to music in the situations I find myself wanting to listen to music. Would have to have headphones for listening to iPad tunes at a doctor's office, or on a plane; and I have a stereo iPod doc at home and at work, which provide better sound quality.
• GPS: I have one in my car, and really don't see how the apps that offer GPS/traffic info on the iPad would work without active WiFi access. Which one doesn't usually have while driving.

I've probably left some stuff out, but that is certainly most of it. So while I like my iPad, I can't say I love it, and I'd be fine without it. But we are peacefully coexisting.

Here are a couple of things I made this week: I beaded around a gorgeous raku cabochon, and forged and enameled a copper palmetto tree pendant (a custom order). I am still working on some ideas of how to creatively design a necklace to support the beaded pendant.

Jen's Pind Linkage (JPL)

JPL (Jen's Pind Linkage) is one of my favorite chainmaille weaves. It yields such a nice, tight, spiral weave, and in my opinion works well whether done in one color, multiple colors, round rings, square (wire) rings, and more.

In this photo, you can see 3 very different JPLs I have done:

The top chain was made with 16g gold-filled (round) rings, the middle one with 18g bronze rings cut from square wire, and the bottom one is a tricolor chain in 20g rings (copper, gold-filled, and sterling),

This is another photo of the 20g tricolor JPL:



I enjoy working with color so much that I made another 20g tricolor JPL to compliment the chain-bezelled raku cabochon now available in my Etsy shop.

I chose turquoise, blue, and burgundy rings for this chain; they pull out the gorgeous colors in the raku cab.

Here's a guided tour of the creation of the 18g bronze square JPL:

Getting started: big pile of rings, and a clasp.

The weave is established, and now I just have to keep it going until I reach the finished length:

Halfway done!

Finished:

Detail of finished weave:

I believe this square version of the JPL would make a great bracelet for a man - particularly if stepped up to 16g square rings.