New chokers from Saturday's market...

It was busy at the market yesterday. I do need to get outside and take some pictures of how pretty it looks first thing in the morning with the mountains of fruit and vegetables, flowers and bedding plants, honey and baked goods -- and eggs. Lots and lots of eggs.

These are the items I made while at my table. Three of the large howlite skull pendants I posted yesterday sold! One guy picked one up and said to his friend, "It looks like bubble-gum!" I guess he meant jawbreakers. They do, too.


Bat-winged skull pendant with gunmetal noodle spacers, zinc beads, on 1.5mm black Greek leather, sold. This is the first time I've used the gunmetal noodles -- I think they are very effective. I'll be doing variations on those next Saturday for my customer. They'll look stunning with the copper bicones below.

 

Black bone claw with African Fair Trade pure copper bicones, black matte glass bugle beads, black Greek leather choker, out on approval.



Black Greek leather chokers with side-drilled howlite skulls and zinc spacers; some have sold, anything with pink still available. I used up every single one of these side-drilled skulls that I bought at the bead show last Sunday. Now I wish I'd bought more!



Side-drilled dyed howlite skull rainbow chakra, black Greek leather choker.
Now that I look at it, I think the purple bead has to go at the other end. I'll fix it next Saturday.

 Lovely breezy day here in the treetops, although clouds have moved in. Sure hope the high heat and even higher humidity has gone away for a while. Have a beautiful and leisurely Sunday. Me? I'll be sitting inside here typing all afternoon. Thanks for looking!

New stuff...

Every time in the past three weeks I've sat down here to write and post pictures, something happens -- you know, like a pesky rush typing job comes in or I have to leave or something stoopid sings its siren song and off I go... like the doc in Stratford on Wednesday where I scored a pair of bat-winged skull earrings and a string of large genuine amber chips. Anyway, I was at the Toronto Bead Society Bead Show last Sunday, the 26th, and I brought home a few goodies...

I'd finally finished off some new designs (started by my pal Nancy) and put them into Thyme on 59 the day before, after the market...

And then today, Nancy and Joy showed up at 8:30 a.m. bearing pizza for lunch and dragged me kicking and screaming off of Pinterest to make jewellery and we got lots done for the table tomorrow. Here are just a few things.

I will come back later to write captions. Thanks for looking!

More men's chokers... & ferns...

Happy Mother's Day to all the human, canine, feline, avian, et cetera, mothers out there.

Here are more variations on men's chokers made with spikes and some new skulls I got.



Difficult to see, but these saucer-y beads are crackle matte black agate.

Ferns -- after looking at ferns for years including out in the temperate rainforest climate of coastal BC and in particular Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island and picking fiddleheads along the Nith River upstream from Paris, then this week watching them break through the earth below my window and slowly unfurl, I noticed something really interesting: how it's as if there are one, then two parent stalks, and then a number of baby stalks that come up one after the other, all facing protectively inward.


Mmmmmmmmmmmm fiddleheads. Nothing like fiddleheads, sauteed in butter and garlic,
eaten as is or baked in a quiche!



I'm still trying to sort out how a digital camera works. I took this with the zoom feature, and was able to achieve the out-of-focus background that I'm after, which doesn't seem to work that well if at all when I'm using regular a setting.  The next question is, did I have it on the portrait or closeup setting when I used the zoom?



Kind of makes me wonder, what are clumps of ferns called? A confab of ferns, perhaps?



Here is a picture of the local Leamington tomatoes, so sharply sweet, juicy and tangy that nothing needs to be added, which I bought at the market yesterday and taste almost -- almost -- as good as the ones I used to buy in Rome. There is nothing in the world like Italian tomatoes, especially when they're bought from one of the little neighbourhood street markets early in the morning. In the meantime, until I have a plane ticket to Rome, I am very happy to have found these, albeit greenhouse grown. If this is their greenhouse quality, imagine what the field tomatoes are going to be like!

Thanks for looking!

Lots of changes...

I am in limbo -- albeit a paradisical limbo -- with the main move of some of my furniture, books and art and jewellery paraphernalia still to come when the renovations are finally complete. Most of it will be sold, given away and/or tossed as I am now living in essentially one, albeit quite large, room which, given my proclivities, could fill up rather rapidly. This will be a social engineering experiment: I'm trying to psych myself up to live a more minimalist life. Okay, pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off and stop guffawing. I'm serious. Many, many thanks to Lynn of Fashion Your Space and Nancy, friend and jewellery student, who got me organised and moved.

Here are pictures I've taken through the window next to where I type and in future will make jewellery, perched on the side of a wooded, cliffy hill overlooking a river which in one week has become all but obscured by leaves.



Moving Day 3 May 2013



8 May 2013



10 May 2013 - in the morning

 

10 May 2013 - 3 p.m. View from my typing chair

 Not only have I moved, but as of a week ago I am in a new store. If you're in the area, Thyme on Fifty-Nine is just south of Woodstock on Hwy 59 below the 401, and is an intriguing nooks-&-crannies accessories and gift shop attached to the north side of Dean Michael's Griddlehouse, well off the highway with lots of parking under shady trees. There is even bus parking. Area Red Hat Ladies know this place well. The food? Nancy and I split a HUGE Monte Cristo sandwich with a super-fresh salad. It was pretty yummy and plenty large enough to split. I definitely want to try their Eggs Benny.

Meanwhile, lots of men's and ladies' chokers and necklaces have been made and sold in the past few weeks.

Lots of skulls & lethal-looking pointy things by me.

Pewter raven skull, zinc cones & beads



Pewter skull, zinc cones & beads




Assorted chokers made with copper skull & base metal beads (top), Javanese recycled glass bead &
assorted base metal beads (middle), and carved bone arrowhead with copper & base metal beads
designed by Nancy



Tibetan quartz crystal choker with moonstones, labradorite & onyx
designed by Nancy





A spectacular high cut peridot & quartz crystal necklace with pewter daisy spacers
designed by Nancy for her mother



Assorted silver-plated skull chokers,  middle with lava beads, bottom with handmade African copper spirals & copper beads & plated base metal beads.

Agate "claw" choker with Tibetan bone skulls, raw black tourmaline & red horn beads
designed by Nancy (sold)

Rice lapis lazuli focal bead, copper and pewter spacers, Kingman turquoise chip choker

Raw Chinese turquoise nugget focal with Afghani turquoise, silver & brass beads & base metal beads
designed by Nancy

Assorted chokers designed by myself & Nancy

Thanks for looking and stay tuned for new studio pix!

New Beads from the Brantford Gem & Mineral Show on Saturday...

Here is a sneak peek at my loot from the Brantford Gem and Mineral Show on Saturday held at the Paris (Ontario) Fairgrounds. Unfortunately, this was all the lapis I could score. I've broken the strings up and I have half and quarter strings available for sale. I am still photographing them, but I'll post a few below. Email me first to buy (I take PayPal); it'll be first come first served as there are so few beads. Eventually everything will link directly to Etsy.

I have a request in for 4mm, 6mm, 8mm and 10mm matte rounds. This lapis is undyed with no added treatment(s), shows a range of colours and lots of pyrite and some to no calcite. It comes direct from Afghanistan (in the peaceful north, where the mines are). It's all hand cut, and so the bead sizes vary quite a bit, and the strings are sold as is. What I find really nice about these particular beads is that they have mostly 2mm holes. You may have to take a bead reamer to the odd bead to smooth out the burr in the centre, but the big holes are a bonus.

I'm still learning about the semi-precious mining industry in Afghanistan, in particular the lapis, and there are fascinating YouTube videos where you can see how it's still done by hand. The mines are virtually inaccessible except on foot and there's no way to get heavy equipment in, nor is there hydro or water.

From the centre out:
puff hearts, 2 lapis, 1 rhodochrosite(?), 1 smoky quartz
squarish faceted matte lapis
small flat-back skulls, tiger eye, amethyst, lapis and pink quartz
graduated polished lapis saucer beads
yellowy-orange resin beads with possibly silver-plated beads from Afghanistan
tiny squarish matte lapis tabular beads, slightly graduated, with faceted edges
Tibetan-style matte etched carnelian beads
assorted crystals, amethyst, citrine, clear quartz, definitely heat-treated, but nice shapes and sizes
drilled fossil pendants
polished 9 to 11mm lapis rounds
fancy coin silver beads (top)
tiny matte Afghanistan jade arrowhead beads

Polished lapis rounds, 9-11mm, 2mm holes, $13
Matte lapis squarish tabular beads, faceted edges, 1-1.5mm holes, $16
Matte lapis faceted beads, 2mm holes, $16

What you'll notice on these lapis beads is that the holes are drilled from each end so they're evenly sized, not large on one end and tiny on the other. Very occasionally you'll find a bit of a burr in the centre of the bead but a careful pass through with a bead reamer will take care of that. The holes are clean at the entry and except where noted are slightly larger than 2mm. A 2mm leather cord will go through them easily.

The colour is a bit overbright here -- I'm still working on capturing the colour -- but this shows how the colour goes all the way through the lapis beads.

These are the few handmade coin silver beads I could get this time. 10-11mm diameter & length. Sold individually, $9 each (except for that little squirt, $7).

Here are a few things I made at the market on Saturday. I was sitting there trying to come up with a new bead combination and it suddenly dawned on me (I hadn't had even one coffee yet -- an emerging theme -- it was literally dawn at that point) that I should be able to enlarge the tiny holes in the copper skulls. I was surprised at how easily the little reamer and hand drill worked, even though these are solid metal beads. I first used the diamond reamer to enlarge the hole at each end and then I drilled out the hole with the hand drill so I could use 1.5mm Greek leather cord.

And a couple more chokers, variations on a theme...

These Fair Trade African copper wire spirals are so useful and look great with all kinds of beads.

As always, if you see anything here or elsewhere on my blog that you like or would like information on, email me and I will make that a priority to photograph and price.

Thanks for looking!

Nathalie's necklace... cleaning up... & rings...

Since it has now arrived at its destination, I can show you the necklace that Nancy made back in December for her dear friend Nathalie in Mississippi. Nancy spent hours and hours contemplating beads in the current incarnation of my "studio"... aka hopelessly chaotic front room.

Tourmaline is an extremely important stone to Nathalie and Nancy picked some nice colours and shapes and echoed and complemented them beautifully with several spiral silver-plated, pewter and horn Dzi bead elements. After Nancy put the beads into pleasing order, I did the wire-stringing and crimping. At the moment, I'm teaching Nancy to wire-wrap beads.

It's been a long, unspeakably lonely and sad six weeks since Max died. He was with me one quarter of my life. Yes, time and life tick on... but. The hardest part to get through are all the firsts -- first time to make something to eat and no one to trip over, then no one to clean the plate off later; first time to wake up to no fuzzy face beside you on his pillow; first time to do the market and no one to come home to. He died at the crap end of winter when we're all sick and tired of the snow, the dark and the cold... and the cold... and the cold.

Spring appears to finally have arrived this week: it's above freezing for at least a few hours every day even if it doesn't feel like it, but the front room is filled with light longer and longer into the evenings. Nancy and Lynn (of Fashion Your Space) are helping me turn this room into a workable and working design studio instead of a hodge-podge of tables piled high with who-knows-what-'cause-I-sure-can't-find-what-I'm-looking-for. Most Monday mornings will find the three of us working away: 2 hours x 3 people = 6 hours per week worth of endless boxes and bags of stuff hauled around for years finally opened, examined and purged. That lawn sale I was always planning to have? Phht. Ain't gonna happen. Week after week those things are off to the consignment store, the Goodwill, to a new and appreciative home or out into the garbage. Each week I feel lighter and lighter walking into the back room and seeing empty space and feeling no desire whatsoever to fill it up again. It's very true: once you start getting rid of no longer useful stuff, the catharsis -- and high -- is unbelievable.

Great inspiration for cleaning up and creating a functional working space can be found here: http://jewelrymakingjournal.com/category/jewelry-making/jewelry-studio/ and of course there's always Pinterest. The studios that some people create!

Last week at the market I made this choker and a handful of rings for a client:

Pewter side-drilled skulls, copper wire spiral tubes, 2mm black Greek leather



"Mystery stones", possibly dyed quartz(?), wrapped rings using 16 gauge tinned copper


Thanks for looking!