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!

Many-Hues Studios

I've been lucky enough to spend my weekend up at Many-Hues Studio. I was originally just plugging away on these little beauties:

These are done in sterling silver, with Preciosa Crystal drops. I decided that I really liked them... so...

I went only slightly crazy. They're going to be available on my etsy shop very soon, as soon as I've got it set up I'll post the link. They're only going to be listed for $15.

Once I got all of my earrings done, I needed something else to do. My dad set up one of his new lathes for me to play with

My only regret is that I don't have any more wax. If I go any further I risk hitting the chuck, and as much fun as THAT would be...

Dad let me play with one of his new tools to. So I made this:

We had a lot of fun playing around, and I can't wait to get these casted. Altogether, an excellent weekend with a lot of hard work done.

Saquaro and Jewellery

Well, I'm finally home.

Isn't it just fantastic though?

I've been in Tucson, Arizona for the past week. I had a really good time checking out the cacti, talking with other artists, and eating as much Mexican food as I could stomach without wanting to cry myself to sleep. I met a really fantastic artist who had the booth next to us:

MAKUstudio has some really fantastic and original pieces. She handmakes them all herself, so no two pendants are exactly alike. I couldn't stop wandering over to check out her stuff. I also really liked these guys:

BottleHood recycles glass bottles from liquors and beer, and turns them into jewellery using a kiln. They also make really fantastic cheese platters, display bowls, and lamps! Incredibly neat stuff that really got my mind ticking...

And this is the little darling I whipped up. It's a glass bottle bead (made from Patron Tequila, doncha know) wrapped up with a silk ribbon (From this fancy ass artist: Color Kissed Silk) and one of our exclusive Stones and Findings toggle bars. It only takes a couple of seconds to wrap up, it's easy, simple, and looks fantastic. I'm hoping a lot of people saw it and bought BottleHood's beads!

Not too much knitting completed though. The time difference meant that by the time I was back at the hotel every night, all I wanted to do was sleep. Soon though. I'll take some decent pictures of the gorgeous stones I was able to purchase (oy my VISA bill).

Fox Tail Mead

Just wanted to share the magic going on in my kitchen.

This is a rhubarb/berry mead. The rhubarb is harvested from my Mom and Dad's garden. The berries are just your standard, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. Almost 3kg of local wildflower honey, and champagne yeast to bump up the alcohol levels.

I'm hoping for about a 7% alcohol level in the end. Finger's crossed!

Also working on a ginger beer plant. Not sure about that one, but we'll see.

Skull Tablet Sleeve

It's been a busy, yet somehow unproductive, couple of weeks.

Once gifts were finished, I didn't knit from Dec 21st to New Years. It's a Yule tradition, that you lay down your weaving and knitting to spend time with your nearest and dearest.

My nearest and dearest almost weren't worth it.

I got a gorgeous new book, Knitting off the Axis, from my Mom and Dad. It was accompanied by a gift from my Grandparents.. Enough yarn to knit one of the sweaters. I was so tempted to knit up a gauge swatch that I nearly lost my mind.

When I was finally able to knit again, I nearly lost my mind all over again. I spent 4 nights knitting and ripping out the same small piece again and again, because I was finding it almost impossible to get gauge. On the 5th day, I decided to screw the gauge she gave me in the book and knit however I felt like.

Then I got a shipment of new yarn.

And this came into being.

My coworker got an Acer tablet for Christmas, and apparently wasn't having an easy time of getting something to protect it. She requested skulls, and chose the colours.

And I went a little crazy.

This chart took me a little while to draw up, and once I've got it finished I'll be able to write up a pattern for it. To be fair, I finally know how to do the fair isle technique properly! I can't wait to see how this looks finished. It fits my Kobo just fine, so her tablet should be ok.

So that's my new year. How's everyone else doing?