From the Bench

Although it may look like I haven't been productive in the last few weeks I have actually been working my tail off on two custom orders.  I didn't take pictures of the first order because it was the same stuff I have in my shop.  I've finished the first part of the second order and was so glad to have it done I rushed it into the mail to meet my deadline.  Hopefully I'll have pictures of the second batch (crossing fingers) that will be done today. 

My hold up is I am stuck on one pretty large piece.  It is a 1.5 by 2.5 piece with details and embellishments and, honestly it is killing me!  For those of you who don't know, in order to get things to stick with solder a piece needs to be heated evenly and to a high enough temperature for the solder to melt and "glue" the pieces together.  Well, with such a large piece I am having a lot of trouble. I've melted two already.  Today will be my third time and, hopefully, third time's a charm as they say.  I've worked it out in my mind how to do it differently so hopefully it will all come together smoothly.  Here is the sketch I worked up:

For my mental sanity I had to take a break and create a couple of things that have been in my mind, just so I could get them out of the way and concentrate on this one last piece.

 This stone is called Pinolith.  It's is big, chunky, and round.  I love it.  I added the filigree on the side that mimics the white "feathers" in the stone.  It's pretty fun to wear.

A couple of months ago I bought two gorgeous strands of graduated turquoise nuggets.  They have sat and sat, tempting me into creating something but everything I have put them in just didn't do them justice.  I think these finally do it.  I clustered the smaller pieces together and the varying colors and matrix seem to really show them off. 

These aren't many pieces but they get me refocused on the work at hand.  Enjoy!

Lampwork

I finally got around to getting these put together. I swear I made the components six weeks ago and just never got to it.

Done! ~yay~

New from the Bench

I've postponed my vacation updates for now to share something new from the bench. We had a cooler day yesterday and that combined with a little fixing of the air conditioning system in my shop I was able to work more than a couple of hours yesterday. I got some orders done as well as some things I wanted to make.


These are the beads and focals I wrote about here. I'm still tweaking, but I am pretty pleased with the progress so far. The green one is up in my shop but I may add to it and/or the others. I think they still need a little something.

This is new, too. A gorgeous lace agate with colors of the Painted Desert.

All-in-all I'd say it was a pretty productive day at the bench.