Run! It's a moose!

Haagen-Dazs Blackberry Cabernet Sorbet is amazing.

After I got my hair cut and ran a couple of errands, I went to the new workshop, only to discover that the city still had not turned on the electricity. So I spent a couple of hours hammering out earrings and pendants and then packed up all my enameling tools (including the kiln), so I can set up on Sunday at the apartment. Somewhere. You know. In my small apartment. *frets*

But I got 8 pairs of earrings and 7 pendants done. And I'm going to wire up some more earrings and necklaces that don't require hammering.

In Hawaii 5-0 news, I found Danny's favorite soda at Central Market:



Haven't tried it yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Called Merchant Services/IPayment yesterday, all ready to drop them. They raised my maintenance fee by 50% (from $10 to $14.95), and keep dropping little fees on me without much notice. May not sound like much, but I don't exactly make millions selling my jewelry. The nice young man listened to me, told me he was lowering my fee to $4/month, would waive my other fees, and was lowering my card rates. (He also let drop that if I waited until June of 2012 I would be able to cancel my account with no penalty.)

Now it actually makes financial sense to stay with them for another 14 months, since the penalty for canceling early is $250. I will still try out my Square account at the next show, though.

It looks like we're moving the Lab this weekend. I do have access to my brother's truck, if not the Nephew (he's working a double), so with help from the others moving I should be able to get everything over in 2 trips. Then I have to get back to work! Need to make more things with hearts on them! And some more horror-themed things...

Here's a shot of the finished bowl. I heat-patinaed it, cleaned it and waxed it. The photo doesn't show all the play of colors in it, but it still looks nice (and there are 2 more shots on my flickr page).

Now we start raising a new piece to make a vase.

Back to the workshop tomorrow night! I should be able to get several more enameled pieces done. (I kind of have to, since the World's Best Niece has already claimed one of the new small pendants.)

I think I'm going to cancel on the Gem & Mineral Society Swap Meet. I'll go for a while, but I have way too much to get done to devote an entire day to sitting around outside. (This way I can also drop by the coin show if I decide to go.)

Still on the fence about selling at the Kanine Karnival in May. It would give me 3 shows in a row, 2 in a row that are outside. *sigh* I have to make up my mind by the 10th.

I have signed up with Square to handle my credit cards, since the Big Company I'm with right now just decided to raise my monthly maintenance fee from $10 to $14.95 a month. It's like they want to make me leave...

Got up kind of late and made my way to the workshop by about 1pm. Stayed until 7, cleaning and grinding metal, and laying on base coats of enamel so I can be all creative tomorrow. I'm filthy.

Anyone who thinks that making jewelry is this dainty, "nice" hobby had better not get downwind of me after a long day in the workshop. Phew.

Got the stitches out of my knee yesterday, and was told that the meniscus tear was really, really bad. As in a complete split bad. My knees have always been crappy, but a combination of lots of sports that work knees hard (fencing, martial arts, baseball) and my weight gain have done a number on the right one. I have the knee of a 70-year-old. Joy. So, unless I want the thrill of a total knee replacement in the next 5-10 years, I have to lose the weight.

The World's Best Niece and the OMG!Boyfriend saw Source Code last night:

( spoilers hidden... )
tl;dr, go see it. worth the money.

OK, surgery is scheduled for 8am on Friday. Now I need to organize rides to and from the surgery center. I'm so glad they're working with the center out in Cedar Park since the drive out to Oak Hill can be a real pain. Should only take about an hour and I can probably go home early in the afternoon.

I was at All-Con in Dallas this weekend, running the booth for Mr. Pegasus. It was a last-minute thing, and it was a nice little show. Lots and lots of costumes, including whole families dressed up. I was planning on getting enameling done, but I at least got a commission finished that had been hanging fire since *cough*August*cough*. alycorn was amazing and set everything up on Friday and loaded the truck on Sunday, saving my knee a lot of pain.

Of course, on the drive back last night there was a wreck in Belton so I had an hour added to my trip. Joy.

We will be moving the Lab soon, so I need to get out there and get some work done. I'm selling at the World Horror Convention here in Austin at the end of April and of course I've left everything until the last minute. Getting that commission out of the way has really cleared the decks creatively--I have a lot of great ideas bubbling around.

Here's one shot of that commission piece. It's a great big crystal, almost 3 inches long and over 3/4 of an inch wide at the widest point. The owner wanted to be able to wear it from either end and gave me carte blanche on metals. I think it turned out pretty nice. I sure hope he likes it!


Off to do laundry and watch Hawaii 5-0!

I seriously have the best friends in all the world.

Really.

A couple of months ago I posted a picture of a kiln I wanted on Facebook with a joking caption, something like "This is what I want for Christmas! My very own kiln! One with a window in the door!". My friend S's wife H (whose wedding I went to this summer), came back and said, "Well, why don't you start a Paypal account so people can donate?". And then several people chimed in, saying they'd contribute. So I did.

Folks started contributing. Anywhere from $10 to (good grief!) $100. I got to within a couple of hundred dollars--a kiln is about $600--and then nothing more. I started to seriously think about closing the account and using the money to get something else. Then one of my friends--who is totally awesome!--sent me a check to cover the remainder. We will be discussing her custom jewelry options soon. :-)

I put in the order the other day, and I just got a notice that the kiln is being shipped. Via FedEx Ground, so I don't know when it's going to get here. But now I'm obsessively checking the progress. I'm having it shipped to work so I can take it directly to the Lab and set it up. Then I can make everyone who contributed their promised jewelry.

My own kiln! No more using a borrowed one! And it has a door so I can see the enamel just as it melts and no more overheating! Eeeeeee!

Plus I started my Coppersmithing class this week. I'm either going to be really sore or have serious forearm muscles before this is over. Beating a 9 inch plate of thick copper into shape is hard.

Spent all Friday afternoon and most of Friday evening plus all Saturday afternoon and evening in my workshop. Total pieces completed: 3 bracelets, 1 necklace, 10 pendants, 10 pairs of earrings. (The bracelets have 6 parts and the necklace has 7.)

I may go back in Sunday; I may not. I still have to assemble all these pieces and do a bunch of wirewrapping as well, along with making some tuxedo studs (I had a couple of requests at the last show), pricing, and all the other little things I have to do in order to get ready for my show on Saturday the 4th.
 
I also managed to whack my left pointer finger while making my silver spiral earrings. Ouch.

In other news, John Steakley, author of Armor and Vampire$, passed away Friday night. We weren't close or anything, but I'd known him for a long time, through conventions and mutual friends. He was a swell guy, and he'll be missed.

I've never been a patient person. Always wanted to get there first, get the test done first, get it done, done done.

Enamels have taught me to slow down. You can't rush them; if you do you've just screwed up hours of work. It took me an hour and a half to lay in the damp enamel powder (a process known as wet-pack), and then I spent another 10 minutes getting rid of as much of the stray enamel bits as I could. Then I had to wait for the enamel to dry--you really, really don't want to put water in a 1350F environment--before I could fire it to see if I screwed everything up. All that for about 3 minutes in the kiln. (Then I had to add some more enamel to fill in a few holes, but that only took about 5 minutes--after I waited for the piece to cool.)

Chasing has taught me even more patience. You have to be mindful of where your tools are striking all the time; one misstep and you've ruined hours of work, or just added more hours to fix the mistake. Fine (.999) silver is quite forgiving, though, and I always enjoy working with it. I figure this took me about 20 hours of work and as usual I'd love to spend another 20 hours on it.

I still have to scrape/grind the teeny bits of enamel that insisted on getting on the silver despite my best efforts. Then I'm going to lightly polish it, carefully turn down the tabs, and attach a chain. I promise I'll take more pictures when it's done.

Now I'm back to working on pieces for the show the week after Thanksgiving. Thursday is given up to cooking and the Macy's parade and Pumkin Chunkin' on the Science Channel, but come Friday I'm in the workshop pretty much full-time.

I was up pretty late last night, working on bolo ties. I don't normally make too many for any one show--while I like them, they aren't usually a hot item. Except that I sold 2 at my last show and I keep seeing ads for "bolo-style necklaces". So, I put together 6 of them, using smaller stones than I normally do. Since I don't use purchased ends for the ties (they look tacky), I wrap the material in wire to make it look more handmade and interesting.

You know, I'd forgotten what a pain it is to wrap wire (especially bronze wire) around a not-very-thick soft cord. And I kept misjudging the amount of wire I needed and had to unwrap several of them as it became obvious that it wasn't going to work. But I got them all wrapped, and even added beads to one (will finish them up either tonight or Friday after setup). But man, my hands are sore.

Also found out that I got into the Wheatsville Arts Festival, sponsored by the Wheatsville Co-op! It's pretty prestigious, and it's always a great show for me. Now I know what I'll be doing over Thanksgiving weekend--making jewelry (the show is the first weekend in December).

So tonight I go to my storage unit after work, and load up my tent, weights, etc. I'll load up everything else at the apartment either tonight or tomorrow. dremiel will be helping me out with setup, and my nephew is supposed to help me with teardown on Sunday. 

I sure hope the Wheatsville folks don't deposit my check until next week. Money is very, very tight and I still need to get out change for the show.