Friday Faves!

I have always had a secret fondness for today's fave, however,
recent events have increased this fondness.


If you've been reading my blog (or the forum), you will know that I had an unexpected expected class held at my place this past weekend.

With everything going on in my life I had completely forgotten about it until I received an email from the instructor the day prior!

The class turned out to be a private lesson really, as the instructor had let this date get away from him as well. However, since he was coming through this way anyhow...it still worked out.

Who is this accomodating instructor?

None other than Loren Damewood of Golden Knots.

Loren turns out to be just as nice in person as he is over the internet (where I've had the pleasure of 'knowing' him on forums for several years now). Not only is Loren a 'fave' of mine, but now 'knotting' is a fave, thanks to Loren.


I was blessed to have Loren all to myself (well, I shared him with my family for a bit) and he is a fabulous instructor. Since it was just him and I, we did both the bracelet and the ring workshop in one day. ONE DAY!!! Actually, in all of about 5 hours....


Loren is easy going and quickly adapted to the one student format and pushed.....no, sorry, encouraged me....through both projects. Loren comes with all the tools, wire, and provides written material and diagrams as part of the class, pluse he has loads of extras -DVDs, tools, etc which one can purchase. Loren is CLEAR in his instruction and PATIENT - both of which I thoroughly appreciated.


For me, the ring (which we did second) turned out to be a little bit easier than the bracelet, but both were accomplished without fuss. I think that attests to Loren's teaching skills. He allowed me to do the work but was ever present, watching all the while, just in case I made a wrong turn...and always reminding me to keep the wire on the right angle, or not to bend the wire.


I was VERY pleased to have completed the bracelet and have been wearing it ever since. :) Loren prides himself on the fact that his students leave with FINISHED jewelry, not parts, components, or scraps. And I think it makes a huge difference in how I felt about the experience. Coming away with completed work is wonderful.

I technically completed the ring, however I wanted to run another course around and haven't yet done that.....

so its not finished-finished.

The long wire still protruding is a dead giveaway. ;-)

I can't recommend today's fave highly enough.

Loren is a wonderful teacher, a highly skilled artisan, and an all around nice guy.

Check him out at: http://www.golden-knots.com/








And have a GREAT weekend all!
~Janice

TFT - 05.27.09

Last night worked surprisingly well. I am finally about over my headache which made things much easier than they have been in over a week. We had leftover food, from Memorial Day, ready to go so when I got home I threw it all together, we ate, then I slipped off to the basement. (I'm getting good at this!)

My son did join me not too long thereafter, and he continues to want more of my attention than when I began this Tuesday night studio thing. He's so cute, I can't get mad, I try to engage him and I take brief (I mean really brief) breaks to watch him or do something with him. Its all fun. I enjoy it. :) Last night we danced and huggled (somewhere between a hug and a snuggle) and generally chatted a lot while I was working.

Despite my best intentions to complete some of my pieces, I really began a couple new ones. . .I can't seem to make myself stop! But I've publically committed to doing just that, stopping any new creation until I finish these and I've determined to finish everything I have in various stages by the end of the month. Oy. But seriously, remember the necklace, with the beads and bits of chain and whatnot? Thats STILL not done. So, its high time I get serious and then get some of these listed for sale.

Last night I began this sterling and charoite ring. I like how the stone is set on horizontal and the setting is no fuss. its kind of sleek which is different from a lot of my other work.




The setting needs to be cleaned up, polished and then the stone set. Right now its just in there for a test drive/fitting.




And here it is on my hand. Whatcha think?

Does it stand alone well or do you think it needs some embellishments?

I also did some work on this 'far out' pendant.



It reminds me of something from the solar system. Its sterling, fold formed, hammered, soldered.



Needs clean up and then some LOS, then the lapis and amethyst (bullet) will be set.



And by far my favorite........this ring.

Its going to be SO hard to part with this one. This is sterling, fold formed, with 14k gold balls. It just really appeals to me.

Right now it has a very rough finish and I'm not sure how high I'll take the polish...then definitely LOS to really pop the gold.





Finally, I've been remiss at sharing about the class I took with Loren Damewood on Saturday. I made a cuff bracelet and a ring (ring picture coming, along with full details of the WONDERFUL workshop)

This is a knotted fine silver cuff. It is created from ONE uninterrupted strand of fine silver wire. Cool, huh?



I ordered some fine silver wire. I don't normally use fine silver but the knotting really requires a soft wire to work with. Sterling would kink and break I am sure.

I also ordered...dun, du-dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

14k gold sheet, bezel strip, and wire. OY. I want to make an entire ring of 14k gold. I am not sure I have gold solder though so I may have to go back and place another order. I finally ordered from Rio. . . . I had been resistant to Rio as I think their prices are higher than one needs to pay, however, that was looking at tools and other supplies. Their metals prices are very competitive, so I was pleasantly surprised and I will be back to Rio on a regular basis now. I happened over there as Thunderbird doesn't have fine silver wire or sheet. (who knew??? lol) So I tripped on over to Monsterslayer and as I was getting my order together I decided to just price out the same metals at Rio. BINGO! Just about the same on sterling and fine silver - but considerably lower on the 14k gold. So it worked well.

I'm a bit nervous about using the gold but I'm also excited. Stay tuned, hopefully there will be a success story showing up soon!

~Janice

Manic, Marvelous -Monday?? (TT)

errrrrrrrrrr, oops, not ! Its Tuesday. Guess that means this is really Tutorial Tuesday.




I don't deserve a day off. It apparently just confuses me.



A little over a year ago I did a TT on enameling. With one pathetic link. Wait, let me back up - the link itself was not pathetic. Not at all. In fact, it was a really cool link. Its the AMOUNT of linkage that was pathetic. One link. Thats it.



I've been wanting to go back and redo that TT -- but seeing as it was 14 months or so ago its not likely anyone would be browsing that deep - so, I'm having a do-over. Today's tutorials are on enameling. And we've got lots of linkage and a couple of different ways to go about it.



Torch firing enamels



Torch fired enamel beads (pdf download)



Forge and Fuse Technique



Trinket Kiln



Enamelling



Enjoy!!