Backside of the Moon Copper Wire-Woven Pendant...

...finally got back to it on Sunday while sitting at the Nostalgia Show & Sale and then finished it today. This is the pendant I started well before Christmas -- you can see above on the masthead how far I got. Then the proverbial shite hit the fan and life became a monstrous blur for several months. One foot in front of the other, and don't look down. Then six or eight weeks ago or so I got absolutely deluged with typing which only let up on Friday.

Last week I'd set up a table outside to sort items for the Nostalgia Show and decided to leave it up all summer. Truth is, I'm too lazy to take it down and heave it back into the house. Today I cleared off accrued tree spit and whatnot and finished that pendant... almost. It looks okay in my hand, but as soon as I edited the photos I saw it wasn't reading, and figured out what needs to be fixed. I'll do that tomorrow. Let it percolate overnight in case I see something else needs tweaking. Of course I'd completely forgotten what I'd planned for the bail... and now there isn't one. That's something else I have to sort out. I think jump rings might wear away at the fine weaving wires, but I like the simplicity of the pendant as it is now. I may just string it on soft leather lace as is.

My outdoor studio, complete with deer flies, the big black ones with festively coloured eyes that you don't feel landing, only when they bite. For some reason they were biting me through my clothes, not my skin, which I found very strange.

Last December's photo, and Sunday's progress:

On Sunday, I'd remembered that I wanted to do something like that double curl at the bottom of the pendant, but the rest? Boh. So I started weaving and entwining... What I was definitely mindful of was producing a fully reversible pendant (this being the nominal front).

The back...

NO POINTLESS TWIDDLES this time, please and thank you! I did get quite ruthless in the end and hacked away.

Now to work:

Worked on hammering those lovely and elegant curvy curves that I admire so much online. This is when an anvil comes in handy, versus a plain bench block.

These are the two sides finished. This was supposed to be the back; yet again it looks better than the front. Not sure about that single curl in the lower right area... might disappear that tomorrow, too, or at least curve it into that woven bit more tightly. It's a structural piece that locks the two sets of weaving together. .

A little overexposed, but this photo of the front shows off the bead quite nicely. See that kind of "wave" dipping across the top of the bead? That's going to be gone tomorrow. It will wrap around and hide the wire coming out of the bead and I hope make the overall design stronger.

I'll post the finished pendant tomorrow. Might even sort out a bail. Thanks for stopping by!

Wire-weaving...

On Saturday, I got Debbie Benninger's book from my mailbox on the way to the market. Wheeeeee... so many mysteries solved! Not so wheeee is that my first effort kinda sucks. But the things I was able to learn... Things like:
... how much wire this eats up so buy by the ounce, pound if you can;
... always cut extra wire;
... do NOT let it kink;
... don't hammer too hard where wires cross or they will break.

For my first piece, I wasn't intending to make a heart. I cut two pieces of wire and started wrapping about one third in. I just wanted to play, to see what changing weaves would do, which is why the heart that the two pieces of wire became is so... scruffy. There's no other word. The silver-coloured wire is 20 gauge tinned copper. Next time, I would use 18 gauge. Even doubled up on the right side, it's very flimsy and bendy. Those mean little curls at the base of the bail are a result of cutting the wire pieces too short.

Front:

Back:

While I was making the above, I took a little detour and made this. What I really, really like to do is hammer and I love the way that flat hammered bit wrapping around the neck of the bail looks.

Then in between both of the above, I worked on this -- ideas come so fast, I have to stop what I'm doing and start another so I don't forget my idea. Kind of a mish-mash of techniques and still learning how to do wraps -- but this time, keeping them tight together, as Debbie reminds in the book.

The day's production:

Hydro, in its infinite wisdom, decided to cut the power out along the highway from 8 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. without telling us, and so I was forced to work outside. No biggie, it was something I had been thinking about for a long time, and now had no choice. It was LOVELY. Cool breeze all day, no humidity, no baking in the heat like all my pals were doing north of me in town. Hah!  

On the wildlife front, Friday morning after the rain I happened to wander over by the sliding door and saw what I thought was a bit of stick or leaf. That's funny, because there was no wind. I looked closer and the stick had legs.

Picture taken through the screen from inside my house:

Picture taken from outside:

Yesterday morning around 8:00 I was outside wandering around and my eye was caught by bright sky blue moving on my windshield. I could not capture the blue -- it was a more sky blue than the sticker on the windshield, point being I have never ever seen a butterfly this colour here in southern Ontario (nor a stick insect like the above, either).

It looked like it had maybe just hatched and was drying its wings in the sunlight.

Where it's white along the outer edge of the wing span was an intense light blue.

I've seen a hummingbird twice here in the past couple of days. Even while I'm sitting on the deck reading he'll come by to check out my hanging baskets. I've only ever seen a real hummingbird once before in my life.

Contact Debbie Benninger here or here.
I buy dead soft copper wire from Robert Hall Originals in St. George. You can also get dead soft sterling silver wire there, as well.

Thanks for looking and, if you're ever in the area, bring your beads and come and play in my outdoor studio!