Basket Weaves and Doilies Too

Things have been pretty quiet on the shinies front this week. Last weekends weaving really took a toll on my hands. Silly me, I was just thinking last week about how sore they used to be when I first started working with wire, and how glad I was that they were stronger now. lol guess that doesn't apply to the whole weaving thing.

 I did manage to play with one more pattern; trying out joining wire frames together. I think they call it a Basket Weave. After fussing over it, starting, restarting, unraveling and restarting again, I started to get the hang of it. Not that it's real hard or anything, I just... fuss a lot. Everything has to be ... even. Straight. Right. I kind of obsess on that kind of thing. (yes, I'm the person that goes through and straightens other peoples wall hangings, or bent things in a store. Can't help it.)

I must have called do over on this one 4 times...6 times... dunno for sure. A lot of times. Uneven wraps, not tight enough, not lining up right, one group has more than another, blah blah blah. Do.It.OVER!

 Obsesses much.

 I was really pleased how the last try was coming...

I actually had a plan for a finished piece with it. Long earrings. With a square piece of Amethyst wrapped in. Unfortunately, I totally blew it when it came to where the hole in the bead was and can't wrap it in now. *shakes head* Rookie move.

*grumblegrumble* Am NOT starting over again.

*shrugs* s'ok. I may try to figure out another way to finish it off and use it elsewhere in the future. It'll be perfect for something. Someday. :)

The little basket weave shiny pushed my sore hands to the max. So I decided to take a break. I need to focus on taking inventory and what not, for those glorious things called taxes. Yay. Taxes. (<---much sarcasm in that)

Before I could do that, I need to try to organize my stash that has exploded all over my house. So I set off to clean and reorganize my jewelry room...err... house. Got a lot done. The actual jewelry making room is more organized than it's ever been. Now *sigh* I can't find a damn thing. But it's organized :D

Some of the things I did find in the process was my old crochet stuff. Been years since I've made anything. Seems I put what I had made away in daughter's old closet/the jewelry room. Found my rag rugs, some scarves, a couple 1/2 finished blankets and my Pineapple doilies :D

Was wondering where those ran off too. I was pretty proud of those jewels, especially the big one.

I've always liked the Pineapple patterns. Not sure where it will live now, need to find a place for it that /isn't/ the back closet. *shakes head* What were they even doing there? Silly doilies.

Crochet bug has been nipping at me again. Finding all my old goodies didn't help that go away. May just have to sit down and crochet something. Shiny crochet :D Who knows. Could be an upcoming Freia Inguz line. Never can tell. ;)

That's all for me, for now.

Later taters!

Valentine's Day Bookmarks

I got my order of pewter bookmark supplies today. Finally. Yaaaay for that. Worked up a couple for Valentine's Day.

They both have a Czech Glass heart, pretty purple and pink swirly ones. The first bookmark has a vine 'Baby's Breath" flowers. Little white, pearly Czech Glass flowers with a couple of Aventurine "leaves".

My craft wire was frustrating me, so I wrapped all that in sterling. Guess it doubles as a pendant :D

The second one has the matching heart bead, with a pewter heart chain.

May have to throw another pewter heart on that chain. Think I want it to be a smidge longer.

Bookmark shinies. :D Those are fun too.

Trees and Weaves

So.... I set out this weekend with a plan. It was going to be a tree weekend. I had a Lapis cabochon tree to finish up, and I really wanted to get some trees twisted up with those new chips I got the other day. As often happens over here, shinies seemed to have other ideas. I did manage to get the cab tree done. Go me :D

It goes off to it's new home tomorrow. I actually got a Fluorite tree worked up; it was kinda cool. Looked like beach glass. I did the tree different for it though, it also looked kinda cool. In the end however, she didn't work out. Poor Beach Glass Tree hung wonky so in the scrap heap she went. 

Poor Beach Glass Tree.

As I cut up 5 hours of work I decided I didn't want to play trees anymore. Decided instead I needed something new. So I broke out my new books and settled on coiling and weaving. :D 

I've been practicing all kinds of pieces. Did it all night last night. My poor hands huuuuuuuuuuuurt. Most were scrapped, but a couple were alright. 

The two round ones were just playing, trying to figure out what happens with spacing and whatnot. Add a bead, hang a bead, *shrugs* stuff like that. The loopy coily one I may use. It was suppose to be earrings, but when I put the Labradorite on it I got hit with a necklace vision instead. I dunno, it needs a good antiquing then who knows. May end up earrings after all.

Anyhoo. Weaving. And coiling. It's kinda fun. Think I'm going to try more. Wonder what it'll come out to be :D

heehee, can't wait to see. :D

Torch Wielding Lesson 1: Part 2

Ok. So I went home last night and wanted to finish playing with my new handmade head pins, see if I could pull the Morning Glory Vine earrings that have been floating around out of my head and make something of them.

Having my heart set on flowers, I set off to look thru my stash. Blue iridescent or purple swirl to choose from, I of course settled on... glass leaves. :D

Those kind of wanderings are rather typical around here.

Anyhoo, I put that bad boy on my headpin from last night, fired up the torch to ball up the other end, gave it a twisty twirly, and a good hammer whacking and...

Voila!

A vine-y leaf :D

Actually, the retorching of the other end turned it black again so into the pickle pot it went aaaaaand...the pickle ate most of the finish off my bead. *shrugs* kind of thought it might. So what I really have is a pickle eaten vine-y leaf, but... whatever. It still counts.

Lesson for the night: Don't put beads in pickle.

Look at me go with the learnin' \o/

So there it is. My very first torch project. I kinda like it. I think it's cute. :D

Now to try something else. Not sure what. It'll be a surprise.

Go me.

New chips, pendants and a torch wielding Mamba

Hello hello. Welcome to Freia’s new old but maybe resurrected blog. :D As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I am trying to put several new things in place for this year as I try to take my new shiny hobby and let it become the accidental business it seems to want to be. I just got my business name approval this morning, yay for that. Now I can fire off the business card order and some other official type things I’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on. The new website seems to finally be up, running and working like a charm. Big yay for that. The new website doesn’t have a blog however, and being a blogger at heart, having no blog makes me twitch a little. So I’ve come back here, to Freia’s original blog / old hiding place. *spreads arms and slowly spins ‘round* Whatch’ya think? :D This is most likely where Freia me will be playing now. Welcome to mah place. Some less admin, more shiny new type things I’ve got going on… New simple pendants (I love simple), Tourmaline, Charoite and a faceted Iolite ring thaaaat….I’m not satisfied with just quite yet.

The simple pendants are waiting for my new chain order, then they’ll be ready to rock and roll. The Iolite ring… dunno. May need to go back to the drawing board with that one.

With Valentine’s Day coming, I went in search of some … hearts… yesterday. Not sure what my problem is, but hearts and I just don’t mix. I seem to be allergic. It’s so weird. I looked and looked, twitched a little, and ended up with chips.

Chips are so not hearts.

Oh well. They will be for my new spring trees. :D

The pic didn’t turn out so great. They are…

Fluorite: Beautiful mix of translucent blues, greens and purples. Makes me think of Easter. Not sure why exactly.

Ametrine: Nice light lavender color. May mix those up with some Amethyst and Citrine.

Ruby: Raw natural rubies. Different shades of reds and browns.

Peru Opal:  Lovely white to a peachy pink color.

Winter still in full swing here, and me freezing my tuckus off dreaming of spring, new trees will most likely be coming quick so I can pretend spring is in the air.

Some of the totally new, never done it before kind of things I want to do this year is … soldering. I reeeeeeeeeeally would like to learn that. I got myself a torch last year, along with a few other things they say I need. For Christmas, daughter got me a pickle pot and a how to book. Last night I decided to break it all out and give her a go.

That’s my torch and pickle pot. Aren’t they cute? :D

Since I’ve never done this before, or even tried to so much as light a torch, I thought I’d keep it simple. The plan was… headpins. Easy peasy. Right? Right.

*sigh* or not.

I started with the pickle. Read the directions, mixed it up, easy peasy. Filled my pickle pot but had too much. The directions said to store pickle in glass, plastic or ceramic container. ‘k. I can do that. I have… plastic. *double checked storage container list* Yep, it says plastic. The next part went a little like this…

*pours pickle into plastic container*

*puts lid on so it doesn’t spill because I’m smart*

*turns to grab pickle pot to put in crock and heat*

*turns back in time to see pickle seep out the bottom of plastic container all over kitchen counter, floor and sink*

Shitfuck that can’t be good.

Turns out “Pickle” is just some kind of slang word for… acid. Acid is totally what you want spilled all over your kitchen.

Oh, wait. No it’s not. O.O

Solder lesson #1: How to neutralize acid by pouring baking soda all over your kitchen.

Look at me go with the learnin’ :D :D

Got that mess all cleaned up, and carried on. Took me a while, but I finally figured out how to get the darn torch lit. Not sure why I had so much trouble, the darn thing seems to be idiot proof. We won’t look at that too closely to determine what that makes me.

Moving on.

I finally got it working, fiddled with it and went for it. Took the torch to some silver, pickled the fire scale off, buffed them up a bit and ended up with…

Headpins.

Not sure what I think of them yet. They look rather… organic. Pretty sure I need more practice. I meant to actually make something with them, some 'Morning Glory Flowering Vine earrings" or some such thing that's rolling around in my brain but I ran out of steam by this point and decided to end on a win and call it a night.

Maybe I shall have more torch play tonight. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyhoo, that’s all for me, for now.

Later taters!