The flower that blooms last

It's been a busy couple of weeks for my. My biggest conundrum is that my sister's birthday had passed, and I was struggling with the execution of her gift. On a whim, I made this:

Which she told me she really loved. It's a sheet of brass, nickel silver, and hammered copper held together with a sterling silver tulip bulb pin. It's spinny, it's cute... It just needed something to go onto. So I made this:

This part is awesome. It's copper tubing from my local hardware store, which I purchased at $1 a foot. I beat the hell out of it, annealing it whenever I thought it was getting too difficult, and hammering a pattern into the surface. This could also be accomplished using a rolling mill if you have one, with a texturizing plate. I have a couple of ideas that I'm going to use for the next one!

Each piece was polished seperately. Before assembly, I coated each seperate piece in a coat of Renaissance Wax. Theoretically, this should help prevent oxidization and stop it from turning your skin green. Once each piece was coated, dried, and buffed to a shine. Then I put them together:

And it's finished. The sharp outer petals spin, to help prevent any catching or skin slicing. It's a very comfortable fit, and I'm quite proud of the finished result. Thinking about having it on my etsy.

Oh, I finished this too:

Men's wedding band. Now to finish its partner!

Weddings wedding weddings...

It's been a long couple of weeks... full of work but not enough posting.

You may remember a few weeks ago, when I posted this:

Well, I'm happy to report that it's finally finished.

My brother is 18, and this is his present from me. I hope he likes it. I need to replace his other ring as well, but I haven't had a chance to get it put together yet.

My purple sweater is continuing, but I'm a bit stalled on it as I've started growing my various plants for the summer. My lettuce bed has been planted, I'm growing wheatgrass almost daily, and my tomatoes are just waiting for warmer weather to go out onto the balcony.

I'm currently working on a wedding ring, which my friend wanted to suit both her promise ring as well as her grandmother's ring:

Which now looks more like this:

From another angle:

As the ring is now to be made in silver, I wanted it to be a bit more sturdy to prevent anything from happening to it. It actually looks very similar to the matching Men's wedding band, which as you may remember, looks like this:

So... Except for a birthday present which I should be able to finish tomorrow, that's what I've been busy doing. Planting, knitting whenever I can, and getting jewellery work done for people.

I've been running a fever for a few days now, so I'm going to sleep to try to recover faster. I want this wedding ring finished by Friday.

We have to go deeper.

Just a quick doodle that I pulled out tonight. I'm making plans for a 16x20 print, and wanted to test out the focal point.

I was once told when I was young, by one of my teachers, that being a good artist meant that you knew when to stop.

Well... With this art I just don't have to.

My family keeps planting seeds

It's been a sleepless week.

I've been working away at a present for my little brother. I decided on a signet style ring, set with a sunstone that I picked up in Tucson, Arizona.

Here's a photo of the beginnings of the project. The square block is hand-tooled until all the sides are 90 degrees to each other. This makes it easier for me to plot the ring out and be completely accurate.

 Then I gradually take pieces of wax off until the ring looks... ring-like.

Once it looks ringlike, I carved out a space for the sunstone. I rounded out all of the corners, and made it ring-like.

I was lucky enough to spend the Easter weekend with my family, and spent Good Friday in my Dad's studio. This ring took me most of the day to make, but it looks pretty good.

It's hard to go home sometimes. It makes me think too much! It's so amazing to go home and be able to talk with my family about my design ideas, technical difficulties, and design issues. They're so helpful, and are able to talk me through any issues that I'm having. They suggest really creative ideas, help me to think outside the box, and plant seeds in my brain.

I'm currently playing with these:

My mom taught me how to make these when I was a little girl. She used to draw them to keep her occupied during church. I use it to zone out.

I'm also going to be using them to etch onto metal for jewellery. I could make these etched pieces to make earrings, bracelets, and pendants. I'm hoping mom can use them in her Fibre arts as well.

I'm working on a lovely bracelet as well, but I think that's enough pictures for one post. Very busy.

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!