Makies and other Stuff

All the house plumbing stuff is finally finished (apart from the 2 new water tanks). Hot running water at last! Oh yes - civilization!

Ashes of Imperfect Flight - black kyanite fan, more distressed tinned solder and natural linen. Gone over the ditch to live in the 'Shakey Isles'

Mellifera - brought about by helping DH clean out an old Landcruiser ute that has sat quietly rusting for more than 10 years, and found a length of slotted metal. I can use this I thought . . .

Teamed with some of my ceramic beads with flame fired enamel, and rather delicious little golden glass drops 

Cartouche
OK hands up all those who have not read the size properly when buying beads and stuff?
Yep I did. Thought these cabochons would be just right for my first attempt at a bezel, but when they arrived they were tiny!
Called for a complete rethink. So did a no solder bezel and captured the cabochon with a backing plate. Sneaky right?

And . . . my first ever custom order! Variation on a theme.

The Good, the Sad, the Bad and Marsala

The Good 
I now have a fully functioning kitchen with cupboard doors. (Hooray no more dust, dead moths/bugs or peek-a-boo geckos)
The best bit, besides acres of bench space, is a fully functioning gas cooker. Mmmmmmmmmm roasts, home made pizza, cakes that is, until the novelty wears off


The Sad 
We lost our beautiful, sweet, Kelpie girl, Gidgee from an autoimmune blood disease. 

The Bad
The week we lost Gidgee, my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's. This kind of diagnosis is not something anyone wants to hear, but at least now he knows why he has these puzzling symptoms. Has been on meds for just over a month and the difference is noticable. Not up to full dose strength yet, but we are hopeful for a much more significant improvement.

and Marsala 


In my roaring days I recall drinking Marsala. I remember the cloying sweetness of the wine and I remember this sweetness being tempered by the addition of beer. That's right in the same glass! 
I do not recall however, the headache that must have ensued.
Ahhhhh the Perfume of Delirium!

Time Slips Away . . .

The New Year has come winging in from the Universe, the hunting tip on Time's Arrow, and we all begin the one directional journey into 2015.
And true to it's nature time has slipped away and it is the end of January. The weather has been hot, hot, hot, peppered with very enthusiastic thunderstorms. Not a lot of creativity happens when the temperature and humidity insidiously sucks any enthusiasm that can be mustered, totally away. 
I long for cool.

Don't do the New Year Resolutions thing - get thin, get fit, eat healthy, give up the booze, blah blah blah. But I do need to upgrade lots of skills for what I wish to accomplish this year. 
This is not so easy when you live buried in the bush as there are NO workshops available close by and to take on line ones is frustrating given the dodgy Optus mobile connection. 
Looked into courses further afield hoping to find perhaps a weekend or longer one. The only one available within 4 hours drive runs 1 day a week for 8 weeks. *grumble grumble* So gonna have to do it muhself muhway!(as usual)

Metal cutting:- have been hacking up stuff with the metal shears and the big-ass Weiss cutter. Quick, effective but not exactly subtle. 
Now the thing is, have had a jeweler's saw and blades lurking in the drawer for over 12 months and now that I have made my down-n-dirty-quick-assemble-bench-pin system and have a chair that drops low enough, took the bull by the horns and actually sawed a piece of metal without breaking the blade! Well that wasn't so hard, mind you it was only a straight bit, curly bits I feel, will be a kangaroo of a different colour.

Soldering:-
To prove that the sucky solder I did on the last post is, in fact, a technique, ie. able to be reproduced at will, made a couple of earring mates to match.

I will return to the gladiator's arena of battling soldering irons at a later date, after all how hard can it really be?
Torch soldering is next on the list. Just waiting for some copper wire solder and 3 flavours of silver solder to arrive and let the practice begin!

My sister bought me this for Christmas. Onya Sis!

Ya gotta love a another woman who understands the need for big arse tools and buys them for you.
Now I can hold stuff tightly! 
With the new tool and a strip of freshly sawed metal decided to have a go at something I have been thinking about for a while - a ring.
But wait, I have no ring mandrel.
Wandered down to the Man Shed, my go-to place for items I may be able to use came back with my 2 purloined tube sockets

Roughly a size 8 and 9 ring (Q & S in Aussie ring sizing)

Started forming the ring by slipping the tube socket over the thin side of a pair of bail pliers and bent the metal around the socket.

 
Then transfer socket to the vise to finish forming the ring, however, a proper ring mandrel is what I need, especially as I intend to make specific sized rings.
Made the first batch with adjustable bands.

 Red Coral and copper

Simple copper wire with wire wrapped blue magnetite

Copper and varicite (hocus pocus out of focus the victim failing batteries)

A soldered 1 cent bronze coin featuring a feather tailed glider. (In life they are about the size of a mouse and we have them here where we live)

 Amethyst and gold/copper leaf. My camera shrieked in agony trying to focus on the blingy surface

 Finally, some fold forming and Koroit bolder opal chips set in resin.

  Cold connections:-
I intend to learn to make my own cold connections. A good adjunct. When soldering fails rivets prevail!

Proper settings:-
I intend to learn how to set stones and cabochons in the proper traditional way. (This is only until I can rip up the rules and set in improper outlandish ways).
 

Some of the victims waiting my not too tender and probably hamfisted bezel attempts.

On a more personal note it was my Birthday in early January. I turned 70.

Not quite sure how I feel about this.

On one hand, I am chuffed to have survived all that has been thrown at me and made it this far. 
Had I been born in the distant past, long before the cult of youth came into being, I would have been hailed as a Crone, the third stage in my journey as a Triple Crowned Goddess. 
Lauded as a repository of wisdom and knowledge, keeper of the mysteries. I would have had a pagan ceremony conducted in my honour with chanting, drumming, sacred smoke, capes of skin, woad, deer antlers and feasting long into the night.

On the other hand, I now have more time behind me than before me.

So what will change?

If you are expecting my jewelry to suddenly morph into tiny and discrete, lavender and lace, matching and what everyone thinks old women should wear 

FORGET IT!

The rustic, crusty, edgy, shabby, gritty and unhinged-ness will continue unchecked 'cos I ain't ready to roll over yet!

It All Began With . . .

My SUCKY attempts at soldering. 
Bought the great tutorial from Pip n Molly on soldering tin, which is full of hints, tips and glorious pictures of neatly soldered treasures. So, how hard can it possibly be?

Soldering Iron: 
not a stunning choice at the hardware store. Seem you can have tiny pointy ends, medium pointy ends and great big pointy ends and the irons are either, on at the temperature the manufacturer thinks is near enough, or off.
Chose a cheap 'n' cheerful with a medium pointy end. Got the flux, a couple of rolls of lead free solder and some sal ammoniac.
Read all about soft soldering and maintaining the bits with sal ammoniac and keeping the bit clean.

And then the questioning of my soldering ability began.

Firstly I totally obliterated the medium pointy tip. Look!

Not to be defeated I filed the manky-mongrel tip to a chisel point and set of in pursuit of perfection again.

This opened up a whole other can of worms.

During one of my numerous attempts to get smooth precise areas of solder, I found that the new tip made the solder run anytime, and anywhere ready or not. Solder ran in random blobs over the tin and the copper and even onto the soldering mat. Argh! I re-fluxed and re-heated and tried pushing and poking it into submission with a bead mandrel when an interesting texture appeared. 
Forgetting perfection I added more abuse to the surface with various pointy, round and straight items administered with a large hammer. (Oh the joy of revenge on the recalcitrant solder), and one thing led to another and these appeared.

 Me thinks this is a classic example of avoidance.

Another Mouth to Feed

 

You have to admit this Baby Tawny Frogmouth is Muppet cute! 

Alas picked up by well meaning people when it didn't need rescuing. My job now, is to try and teach it everything it's parents would, and return it, hopefully to prosper in the wild. 

S'Mores

These caused me no end of grief and a whole day to photograph. Camera didn't know which bit to focus on. I'm sure it was glad to see the back of em.

While trying to avoid catching the 'winter wog' DH bought back with him from Brisbane. And trying to look sympathetic to his hacking and snuffling and providing pillow fluffing and throat soothing drinks(it was, after all man-flu) made these. . . 

  

Used Mrs Devices epoxy putty technique and I am still traumatised probably because I just jumped in and did it. Instructions? what instructions? Oh yes, it did say that didn't it. Bad Greer! Write out 100 times 'I must fully read tutorials.

Remember this? Well it looks like this now.

Squeeeeeeeeee - all iridescent and mauve and not a drop of epoxy putty in sight!

Detours

1. Waterproofing and tiling bathroom floor. Next, tiling hob and walls followed by installing showerscreen when it finally arrives.

2. Working diligently on an acrylic painting for a September show.

3. Elected as secretary of local art society. Shuffling through past paperwork in progress.

4. Old codger back from eye surgery. He claims his op was worse than my two cos he has 'man pain'. Pffffffffffffft!

Hopefully back on track next week.