I'm Like a Greyhound

...okay, not exactly. I'm not that lean, and I don't have the big, soulful eyes. And I am (hopefully!) slightly less neurotic. But it seems like all I do is run, run, run...I get why those dogs are tired.

Brett and I arrived home late Monday (later than expected, due to equipment problems on the plane), only to find that the air conditioning was out AGAIN. I'll spare you the details, but it pretty much goes out several times every summer. Long story short, we got it fixed yesterday around 5 p.m. Guess who works from home? Guess who spent two full days with no air?? It was a little uncomfortable, to say the least. I like working with a HOT TORCH much better in the winter.  :)

But I did manage to get several pieces to the clean up stage this week, and I'm pretty happy about that. Of the big grouping I started two weeks ago, I have fully finished four (plus one designer piece), I have seven partially done, and eight more to go.

It's going a little slower now because I'm doing earrings. And for every sale-able pair, I need to double the work of  making one pendant. Less efficient, but so much fun when they are finished.  :)

The above quick-n-dirty bench photo is of two pendants and a pair of earrings. I LOVE how the pendant in the upper right corner came out! You can't quite see the top details, but it went together exactly how I'd imagined. Which doesn't happen as often as you'd expect (or as I'd like).

The middle two are going to be biiiiiiiig earrings. Those bezels are built for these babies:

Mmmm...hiya, big guys. I can't wait to get them set and cleaned up.  :)


Then there's these:

Two more pendants, one for a Kingman (upper right) turquoise, small oval with cute little streamer-like embellishments, and one for a Morenci (lower left) turquoise with a sort of Asian feel to the top embellishments. And the two pairs of earrings are both chrysocolla. They're fairly small stones, so I wanted to do something a little more exciting than what I used to do last year:

All I did for every pair of earrings last year was add a jump ring. Woo! I was a beginner...and just adding that friggin' ring at the top was hard.  I file a flat spot on my jump ring attachments, so that they join better (more surface contact means a stronger join) and it took me so long to be able to file straight / flat. I swear, sometimes I think I must be the MOST remedial of learners when it comes to jewelry fabrication. But I've done it so often now that I don't even have to think about it.  :)

So my earring designs are advancing...thank goodness. I feel very comfortable with pendants for the most part, but getting creative with earrings (and not adding too much weight with the sterling or making them too oversized to wear) has been a challenge.

Next up...rings. It's a whole other scenario, with shanks and all that, but I think it's almost time to start playing with gemstone rings. I've been waiting to get my skills competent enough but I think rings are moving to the top of my 1,587,652,213 things on my list of "design and create".   :)

Pondering the Next Step

I think I'm sort at a weird place in my fabrication journey. Now that I've reached the point where the mechanics of fabrication are coming along fairly easily, I am focusing more on design. And that's a thrill!! I feel like I've got designs just rushing out of me....well, they're rushing to GET out, but I can't make them all at once; I can barely even scratch the surface of making any of them. My sketchbook is overflowing right now, but there's never enough time...

The dot-and-line pieces (I've got to think of a better name for those) are coming along nicely, though I'm thinking they may be too boring. Ha! Only a couple of weeks in and I'm over it already. Such an instant gratification girl! But I still want to give them a go at wholesale, refine the line, and see where that goes. And I keep thinking about how to do more of the curvy metal with the accent pieces as a stand alone. I'm not there yet, but it's floating around my mind, tickling me with its potential.

I also want to revisit this:

in several ways. I did two or three pieces like this last year, and they all sold. And they got brought up to me several times after they were gone. And I like the idea of them...I just couldn't get to where I was satisfied overall with the blackened parts. But I have a lot more experience - with both designing and blackening - behind me now, and I have some new ideas for this style.

And, I think I might be moving UP a bit with the mosaic work. I had some pieces cast last year, and they did allright...but not what I'd hoped for. And now I think I have some new plans for casting with the mosaic pieces in place, and also changing the hand fabricated work with these pieces.

I also recently finished this:

And while it was a big learning experience, I am really happy with the end result. I want to pursue this direction further, and though I know I'm crazy for even thinking about it, I am tempted to submit it here. This is such a big deal to me that I barely can think about it, much less think about winning anything...but still. You can't win if you don't play, right?  :)

Right now I'm working on a bunch more dot-and-line bezel pieces, and then I need to do some work to be cast, but I also want to start the next mosaic piece. I find that they don't make me quite as crazy if I sort of space them out a bit, and let myself play with slightly less complex pieces in between. :)

Just a Quicke

I forgot that I was going to show you the pieces I finished before the Michigan festival!

Two Larimars and a turquoise:

This one was my favorite of the three. It sold the first day of the festival. One of the prettiest pieces of Larimar I've ever seen.

Lighthearted Necklace

Another gorgeous piece of Larimar...I pay a premium for these stones but they're so worth it. People who know about Larimar are so excited to find some, and people who don't know about it want to know. It's always a conversation starter.

This one is nice and thick, too - I did a minimal amount of embellishing because I really wanted the focus on this stone. Here's a side view:

It's got some heft to it.  :)

And last but not least, a lovely turquoise:

Reverie Necklace

In a color I like to call summer-sky blue.  :)