Surfacing, and a creative detour

Surfacing, as in from under water. We've been in a terrible drought here for years, until this winter when it's seems like we've done all our catching up from those years within a couple of months.  And it seems as though every weekend has been rainy - something I've absolutely craved in recent years and have still loved this year except that it meant that we made no progress on the trailer for months.  But, like a miracle, the rain stopped last Friday and gave us a sunny weekend, and canned ham now has a completely installed roof!

If you look close you can see that shiny white aluminum on the front as it comes down to meet the window - yes, the window, not the tarp that covered that hole since last September!  It's not much progress to show you in a picture, but it felt like we were never going to get to this point, so it does feel good.  Now we can start working on the inside together, which will be much more satisfying.  

On the creative front, in spite of always telling myself I'd never give in to the temptation to start making jewelry, I've gone and done it. Over the years I've made a few pieces, because I'd run across something that inspired me to make a piece of jewelry from it, but it's only been a few.  But then I saw a metalsmithing class Stephanie Lee was offering on Jeanne Oliver's ning site, and couldn't resist.  So I've been playing with sheet metal and solder and wire and pipe and have been really enjoying it. Here's a few things I've made.

This is the first piece I made, a bracelet for my niece's birthday. All hand formed and soldered - labor intensive but fun, and amazingly took almost the whole 5 feet of sterling silver wire that I'd bought.

My first successful bezel made with cut copper pipe, sheet metal and a somewhat tricky soldering technique.  I only ruined two before I managed this one, so not too bad, and I had fun making it into a necklace.

A couple of larger bezels, the one on the left is a little heavy as the gear inside the resin was already heavy on it's own. But it fit so perfectly...

 

A hand-formed brass chain.  A good couch project while watching TV, although it was a little rough on the fingers.

This is a birthday present for my sister. The green beads are crocheted, a technique I also really enjoyed. Her birthday is this weekend, so she's forbidden to look at my blog until next week (I'll know if you look Michelle!)

Tomorrow is a big day - I'm supposed to be getting the newly upholstered bench seats from the trailer back.  Stay tuned!