pointysticks.net

This is where my lathe used to sit. I’m not ready to give up my little lathe just yet, although I really like polymer clay, I’m going to wait it out and see if perhaps I might be able to do some occasional well protected wood turning without my immune system freaking out and making my brains explode.

I do very much like the set up. It’s larger than your average jewelry bench and there’s no wedge to slam my face into when I reach towards the back of the desktop. Since I’m not focusing on precious metal work there’s no real reason to have a collection tray at the bottom (although, I do save my scraps to send in should I have a few ounces build up.)

Yes, yes I know. I’ll never make it through all the stages of grief if I’m stuck in denial. Someday medical science might make a major breakthrough and all my problems will go away. It said so in that film they showed us in the 6th grade. They don’t just make things up for those educational films, I trust Mr. Narrator, and you should too.

Here’s some of my finished pieces of jewelry. For some reason when I had the camera out it didn’t occur to me to grab the matching earrings.

Obviously, I need to add a flocked jet board to my shopping list because this was the best of the photos, and it’s a pretty poor representation.

Do you remember what I said about knitting miles and miles of stockinette? (That I might have some kind of genetic mutation because I don’t mind, I find it soothing.) The same thing applies to making my own jump rings and links. Repetitive work like stockinette is soothing, and so is making jump rings. The nice thing about jewelry is that I can warm up by making little components and then when I’m feeling energetic and awake, I can start designing and assembling.

Even though there’s something sweet about making fairly worthless metal and glass into lovely jewelry, there’s a certain joy that comes from using a precious metal. The links are sterling silver, the jump rings (which I didn’t make) are sterling and the chain is sterling plate (which I’m not exactly happy about, when I buy more chain I think I’ll get the full sterling and replace it to make it proper) you can’t see it, but there’s a nice lobster claw clasp that is also sterling.

See? I can adapt.