A rough week

It's been a rough week for me. My boyfriend has been working security all week for Toronto's Fashion week, which means that he gets home very day after I've already gone to bed. So I've been a bit lonely.

And then I found out that on Thursday morning, my beautiful big girl had to be put down.

Whiskey was our first family dog, and she would have been 13 on April 7th. I remember how all of us kids had our calendars marked for the day we'd finally be able to bring her home. She was tiny, she was friendly, and she was a great dog throughout her entire life. She's always had her health problems, but she never lost her amazing personality and her trust in us. I'm going to miss her a lot.

I've been working all weekend as well, so I haven't really had a chance to just sit and let everything sink in. Hopefully the good nights sleep that I had last night will help counter-act that. I did find these at the Bead Oasis show that I'm working at:

I'm giving one of the strands to my brother, he's got a thing for skulls. However I broke into one of them last night

Just for fun.

I really need a bit of fun right now. I'm trying to keep smiling even though I really just want to go home, curl up in my bed and cry. Sleep until I want to wake up. Knit. Cry. I just want to go home.

Holding out till Thursday.

Crazy Awesome Purple Sweater

Just a quick look at what I spent my weekend working on:

This is beer. Fantastic, tasty, probiotic homebrew. There are 5 gallons of it sitting in a bucket fermenting in my kitchen right now.

This is a purple, sideways knit sweater. My Mom and Dad gave me the book with the pattern, and my Nanny bought me the purple yarn. Can you believe that this is only one ball?

What you see here is the back panel, and the front right panel. I've just started knitting the front left panel (still on the first ball of yarn. I then need to knit the sleeves, and pick up stitches to knit the collar and bottom trim. All in all, loving how this is turning out.

Pen clips and Rings

It's been an incredibly busy couple of weeks for me. I've been working with my Dad on a couple of projects, and they're finally starting to show progress.

Firstly, the pen clip he wanted me to make.

This is fresh out of the casting machine. My mold is injected with molten wax, which is sealed in a plaster 'pillar'. This pillar is put in a kiln overnight to melt out the wax, leaving a hole for the silver to be forced into. Once the silver has been forced into the empty space, the plaster pillar is removed from the casting machine and plunged into cold water, breaking it apart to release the completed silver piece.

Because you lose the wax model during this process, it's referred to as the 'lost wax' casting technique.

I think it looks cute, no?

It looks even cuter when it's almost finished:

This has been taken to a very fine emery finish. Then we polish it:

And blind ourselves on the resulting glare. This clip will be going on a test run with my Dad, and then we'll see about making more.

I also made a couple of rings this week:

This is a Sanskrit ring that my sister was having difficulty wearing because it was copper, and turned her skin green. Now it's gorgeous in sterling silver, and I'm extremely proud of the finish that I got on it. So professional! The ring is available on my Etsy

I also finished off this ring, remember it from my last post?

It's all polished up and lovely now. This picture shows you how I started with the piece, and how it finished. The two ridged ring is completed, and is available for purchase.

So that's my crazy busy week. I still have so much to get done, and will possibly have more work from Dad on Monday. Better get my sleep in while I can!