Daisies in progress

As promised, here are some photos! Not of finished work, though, but of work in progress. The first photo shows how I left my desk at the weekend, and I was finally able to get back to it this morning! I've been spending half my workshop time this month working on commissions, and the other half working on designs that I've had planned for ages but didn't have the time to do before Christmas. These daisies will be earrings. I cut out the daisies by hand, drilled a hole in the middle and then threaded through a wire 'stem'. The end of stem that you see inside the daisy was melted to form a ball, and I've soldered the stem in place. The earrings just needed more sanding and polishing and the earwires finishing this morning, and they're sitting in the tumbler being polished as I type. You can just about see a couple of silver birch bangles that need a bit more hammering in the background too.

Yet more daisies! This time for a necklace that I've had sketched out for months. This is how I've left my desk this evening, and tomorrow I want to drill some holes, pierce (ie saw inside the design) some detail and then do lots of sanding and polishing. I've got to do some admin and photo taking tomorrow too, but I'm also hoping to make another pair of daisy earrings like the ones below - these were a Christmas commission, and I liked them so much that they're going to be a made-to-order design too.

Keeping warm!

Well, I'd love to be able to show you lots of photos of jewellery that I've made this week, but as I've been working on my tax return accounts I hope that you'll understand that you'll have to wait until tomorrow! The accounts didn't take as long as I thought they would, but I'd still much rather have been doing something else. It is very satisfying to have finished them though!

I did realise as I was browsing through the comments on recent posts that I haven't yet answered Magriet's question about my shed and whether or not it's insulated - so I thought I'd do that now before I forget again!

My workshop is a 8'x6' shed that T has customised for me. He's put in electricity and lighting, laid carpet (I would have preferred something I could have swept, but we had the carpet left over from doing B's room) and, most importantly, insulated it. You can see some of the insulation in the photo above. He first of all lined the walls with rubble sacks (thick plastic bags designed for use in the garden) so that the walls would have a damp-proof membrane. On top of that he put loft insulation, and that was hidden behind plasterboard. None of the materials that he used were particularly expensive, but they are certainly doing their job! My shed may have been cold enough to allow my pickle to freeze over night last week, but it warms up very quickly once the heater is on and holds it's heat very well. In fact, even last week once the shed had warmed up at the start of my work session I turned the heater off and the heat from my blow torch was enough to 'top up' the temperature. The photo below was taken on the day I moved into the shed last June - I wish I could tell you that it's still as tidy now as it was then!!

The plan tomorrow is to spend as much time as I can in my lovely, lovely shed working on a couple of commissions and on a new idea for my daisy range of jewellery - and to take some photos!

Lots of links

Do you remember this picture? I thought it was about time that I showed you a couple of the pieces that I made with them. The first is a commission piece that I can show you now as it arrived safely with it's new owner this morning! It uses beautiful lampwork beads by Canadian designer Marie-Andree Marchand linked with lengths of by double interlinked chain. I love making this chain, so it's been great having commissions using it this Christmas.

This extra long necklace was one that I finished on Wednesday (during B's first Wednesday at his childminder - I've been able to get so much done with 2 work days this week!). Single chain this time. Each link measures about 1cm across, and I've used purple lampwork beads and smoky quartz faceted rondelles. I've been toying with using purple and brown together for a month or so since seeing more clothes using that colour scheme in the shops and magazines, but what really decided me was seeing a friend's photos of Scottish heather that she took on holiday last year. So I've called this piece Heather, and I've got another piece to show you to using similar colours too - just got to take the photos of it tomorrow!

By the way, if you're in the south of the UK and fancy learning how to make your own jewellery, then Heather is an example of one of the styles of jewellery that you can make during my new workshop - I've just finalised the details and they'll be on the website on Monday. If you would like to know them before everyone else then sign up for my newsletter - I'm sending one out tomorrow, and it'll have a special offer for workshop places on it too.

I haven't ventured out into the shed today, mainly as it's been a day of household chores (such fun!), but also as it's been soooo cold here today. It's barely got above freezing all day, which I know is nothing to some of you in the States, but it's big news here! We had a burst pipe earlier this week as it's never been so consistently cold down here before. The thick frost has made the garden look beautiful though. This is some of the jasmine that smells so gorgeous outside my shed while I'm working on summer evenings!

Would you like ice with that?

This is not exactly what I was hoping to find in my pickle pot and quench pot this morning, but I suppose given the weather recently I should have expected it! I was planning to finish off the chains that I made the other day, but as they are currently sitting at the bottom of my quench pot I guess I'm going to have to wait! Oh well, back to the accounts instead!

New Year, new winner

I've stopped using the internet random number generator to choose the winner of the monthly earrings draw as, well, it just didn't make for a very pretty picture! So, last night I printed out all the names from my mailing list, cut them into strips and put them into my new prize draw drawing machine. Introducing...........

my pink paper and little basket! T pulled a name out of the hat last night, and the winner is Zoe Monk! Congratulations Zoe. I'll email you to get your address. The earrings that Zoe has won are these ones, and the earrings for January are the ones below - lovely pink jade and sterling silver -I thought we needed some bright colours during this dull weather! All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is to sign up for my newsletter by clicking on the brown box on the left. But I've also put a pair in on the website here if you can't wait!

Brrrrr

It's so cold it tried to snow here in Southampton this afternoon and it never snows here - the warm sea air generally keeps it away. B and I went to Katie and Tim's for lunch today, and Katie and I took the children for a walk on the common - well, we had to do something to walk off the chocolate muffins! It was FREEZING!! B enjoyed the playground though, and Gracie had a lovely sleep snuggled up warm in her pram - and a quick hot chocolate in the pub next to the common sitting by the fire helped to thaw us out before the walk back!

I've managed to get some much needed time in the shed over the last couple of days. I definitely get cranky without regular soldering and sanding time! I've been making chains for a new workshop project that I will let you know about over the next day or so, and I've also been finishing off a couple of pieces including the ones here. They both involve rolling leaves through the rolling mill with sheet silver. I made them before Christmas and sent them off for hallmarking with my Christmas commissions. Today was the day to sand and polish off the scratches made by the hallmarkers - they are careful with your work, but a few marks are inevitable unfortunately. The cuff will be going on to the website tomorrow, but the pendant needs some gems and chain. The last one I made ended up looking like this, but I'm not certain about the new one yet. It's slightly bigger than the original. Any requests, anyone?!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a relaxing/fun/busy/family/partying (please delete as appropriate!) New Year's Eve! Has anyone got used to writing 2009 yet? It usually takes me a while.

We had a lovely New Year's Eve at home. I usually find the whole night a bit of an anticlimax - you know, let's stay up really late, oh look it's another year, let's go to bed - and I have to admit I really don't like big New Year's eve parties - although if Jools Holland invited me to the Hootanny I wouldn't say no as that looks like a lot of fun. My ideal New Year's Eve is to invite a few friends round for some food and maybe games like 'who's in the bag', and that's exactly what we did this year. Nicky and her family and Katie and Tim and baby Gracie came round - Nicky's little ones slept upstairs (the youngest in B's room with him which worked amazingly well), Gracie was downstairs with us as at this age they sleep through everything, and we had a great relaxing evening. Well, I assume everyone else had a good time too - T cooked curry from the book Katie and Tim gave him for Christmas and we haven't had any phone calls complaining of dodgy tummies!

I haven't set any resolutions of the "I must eat less chocolate/go swimming once a week" sort as there's no point, I never ever keep them. In fact, I'm wound up until I break them and then relax as I can go back to normal again! I have, however, set myself some goals for this year. Some of them were written on the back of an envelope (in small print!) when Nicky and I went out for a business meeting (aka pudding and a drink at the local pub) before Christmas. Some are business, some are personal, some are family. One of the personal ones actually is to go swimming more as it's something that I enjoy and find relaxing, but never seem to find the time for. I've come to realise that unless I timetable things in, they won't happen. For example, T goes out for a drink late on Tuesday evenings with friends. I know that's his night, so I never book anything else in - and then I moan every now and then that I never go out unless it's to teach a workshop! There is absolutely nothing stopping me going out if I organise to properly and get into some kind of routine, so that is what I must do. Oh, and I suppose the exercise swimming will give me will be good too!

Another goal is to do more of other crafts. Don't get me wrong, there is no way I'm going to reduce the amount of silversmithing/jewellery making that I do. I'll be doing more when (do you like the positive thinking?!) my other goals are achieved. It's more that there are so many crafts that I can do (thanks to my Mum, my Grandma and a great textiles teacher at school) and I've hardly enjoyed them at all since B was born. And it is this goal I have been working on this evening! I decided that it was about time that I learnt how to knit gloves. I learnt to knit when I was 7, so it's daft that's it's taken me this long! I want to make myself a pair of fingerless mittens to wear in the workshop when it's cold in there, and found this pattern on a great site called Knitty. They've got a blog that I think I will be adding to my list of daily reads too. The thing is that not only have I never knitted gloves before, I haven't done any cable knitting since I was about 15 for a GCSE Textiles project, so I'm really hoping that I haven't over reached myself this time! The pattern does say that it's a quick project, though, so fingers crossed. I really like the fact that they only need one ball of yarn too. They seem to be coming along well - what do you think? It does get a bit tricky when I'm trying to control 5 needles at the cabling parts in the pattern! Nicky, if you still want me to teach you how to cast on and off, I've got a spare ball of wool, just get yourself a set of knitting needles!

I've joined Flickr at last, mainly as I thought that Lupin's Crafting 365 Flickr group challenge was what I needed to kick start me into the New Year. So, if you feel like seeing whether I meet the challenge of crafting every day this year and posting a photo of what I've done (remembering to take the photos will be by far the harder part!) then come and see me here!