On my bench today

Work(s) in progress. Wires that have been textured and annealed but not shaped yet. Some that have been shaped and are waiting to be finished.

A pair of copper hoops that needs a bit more polishing.

Silver hoops.

Abacus earrings - a little wonky. My first try. Actually, I seem to specialize in wonky.

And today's finish - Boho Bangles. Not perfect either, but sometimes finished is better than perfect.
The camera and I still haven't made friends again, I used the camera phone for these. Easing in slowly. And I'd better get back into it, I have a huge backlog of photos that need to be worked on.

From the garden

My first attempt at growing onions (and garlic - no picture). Not a great harvest, but not bad. Not much is doing well in the garden this year - weeds don't count. Not sure if it's the cooler than normal summer we've had or the rainy season that lasted longer than usual. But the lettuce is puny, the beans that managed to survive aren't producing as much as they did last year and something ate about half of my bean plants even though I did what I could to protect them. Better luck next year.

What I learned in the last two days

I am taking on online jewelry making class ( http://somethingsublime.typepad.com/jewelry_works/bo.html). We're making earrings, several different types. There are videos to watch, there's a message board to post questions and there's a flickr group for photos of finished eye candy.
I joined late because I didn't find out about the class until it was well on its way and I'm trying hard to catch up. Thankfully, I had most of the supplies - tools and materials.
I've learned during the last couple of weeks:
Copper is a lot softer than sterling. It is much harder to ball the ends of copper wire than sterling wire. And it takes lots longer to work harden copper.
Sterling likes a cooler flame. I have been using the propane torch to ball the copper and used it on the sterling this morning and those balls fell right off into the quench bowl, three times. After that, I turned down the flame and had no more problems. Oh, and those balls shattered completely in the water.
Brass and bronze are much harder to work than either copper and sterling. I pounded those two until my arms hurt and still didn't get to where I wanted to be. I've put them aside for now.
Worm binders from Bass Pro Shop are excellent for storing and organizing wire. We actually made a road trip to one of two Bass Pro Shops in California, quite an interesting trip. Photos are here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150274659593129.328904.708398128&l=f654373a2d&type=1)
Okay, I needed to put that down somewhere before I forget it, but now it's time to go back to hammering and shaping.

to dye for

Here are the results of my dyeing class:



















































First the buckets where I soaked the fabrics (twice) one by one, then the finished fabrics. The last is the one piece of tie-dye. It isn't anywhere near as bright as I expected, but it's okay for a first piece.

Dyeing

As I said in the previous post, I took a dyeing class on Saturday and spent most of Sunday with my hands in water, rinsing in cold water and washing in hot water until the water ran clear. Today, I decided enough's enough and chucked everything into the washer. Since I have a front loader and a pretty new one at that, I don't think I'm wasting all that much water compared to running the sink full 5, 6 or more times.
There are some winners and too many losers (for my taste) among my dyed fabrics and I still don't have pictures of the finished product, but I put a few pictures of the rinse buckets on FB:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150248434143129.320764.708398128&l=9a2b0c2265
Hopefully, I'll get around to taking more pictures this week.
And it's not as if I need yet another hobby, but I wanted to learn to make dyed silk scarves after seeing them at a farmers market (and being a bit shocked over the price), walked into Dharma Trading and saw the class samples and decided I had to try it. Lynn Koolish taught and I already signed up for the intermediate class.

MIA

I didn't realize it's been over a month since I last posted. It's not that I've not been doing anything, it's more that I still haven't made friends with PSE. There's been a lot of sewing going on - but no pictures.
Yesterday, I took a class on dyeing and I seem to be spending today with my hands (in gloves) immersed in water, lots of water. I'm reluctant to put multiple pieces into the same bucket for soaking and so it's taking a long, long time and an extraordinary amount of water. There seem to be a few successes (Jerry Garcia would like some of my stuff) and a few failures. Not sure what went wrong, maybe the dye solution was too old? Once dye and soda ash solutions get mixed, there are only 30 minutes to use the stuff, after that, all bets are off.
There just might possibly be some pictures in the near future.
Until then, I uploaded to flickr and, after a rather long and painful process, managed to upload the flickr badge to the sidebar.

Postal mishap

Today's mail contained a plastic envelope for DH. On the very top, it says "WE CARE." in very large letters. Under it, is a long letter that starts with, "We sincerely regret the damage to your mail during handling by the Postal Service. We hope this incident did not inconvenience you. etc. etc. ....." Basically, it says that sometimes things get damaged in transit.
It concludes with, "We hope you understand. .......... Please accept our apologies."
Inside the envelope was the front cover of The Economist, nothing else.
Inconvenience? Let me think about that one .............................

randomness

I've been taking pictures and uploading them to Facebook regularly because it's so unbelievably easy with an iPhone. But, to get them on here takes a few more steps. I know it can be done using a cable but I just email them to me, copy and past them into Photoshop Elements, fiddle with them a little bit (and I mean a little bit, no fancy editing here) and then add them here.
So, here in no particular order and for no really good reason, a few pictures:
I watch cooking shows fairly regularly and, more often than not, marvel at how people can eat THAT many calories and not drop dead of a heart attack right there and then. Every so often, though, I find something I like and try a new recipe. Potstickers with a shrimp filling passed muster and they really do taste delicious. I made a huge batch and a few of them actually looked good, like the one in the second picture.Couldn't resist those, a Mad Magazine cover and a calendar that's pretty much spot-on. Airlines charge for everything these days, seat back may well be next.
I still have pictures for two more posts - doll eye surgery (don't ask!) and pictures from a recent Sharks' game we attended. But, for now, I'm all "computered" out and will go back to working on quilt blocks.

an evening with arlo guthrie

Thursday evening we went to see Arlo Guthrie. We've both been fans since way back when (and I'm very obviously dating myself here).
He doesn't look like the cute guy seen running around in his undies in "Alice's Restaurant" any longer, but the hair is still long (even if it's white these days), he can still sing up a storm and he tells a fun story or several. He sang several of his father's songs, was accompanied by great musicians, including his son Abe on keyboards and the Burns Sisters, who sang backup, were a good addition.
I'll be listening to my old Arlo CD's in the car for a while now. It's been a while.

Can't figure out how to upload a video that isn't mine, so here's a link to one of his songs (which, BTW, he performed that night):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JuNfURXWtQ

clouds and lilacs

Dark, angry clouds this afternoon. Took the dogs out so they could run off some energy in the backyard and, after clipping lots of lilacs, wet back for the cell phone to take some pictures. No rain so far.


I realize this shot is a little out of focus. Bear with me, I'm learning new things here. Not just how to take decent shots with a cell phone (that part is surprisingly easy), but how to deal with yet another new computer. Yes, we had yet another computer give out on us. The new one is good, but it won't let me use the oldest version of Photoshop Elements - the one I'm most familiar with.
And, what's even worse, it absolutely refuses to load my really old copy of Printshop. I only use it for address labels, but I used to print such nice ones. After looking around, reading lots of reviews and getting some input from the techie brother-in-law, we decided to do without a new version of Printshop (far too many bad reviews). Instead we spent many happy (?) hours coming to grips with Outlook and Word and hope to do decent address labels there. Wish me luck!