Couple of commissions

Here are a couple of new necklaces that were commissioned by customers and hopefully they should be collected from my stall tomorrow.

The above was a very straightforward commission. A customer saw one of my Aeolian Treasure necklaces and loved it but she wanted it all in black. I therefore offered to make another necklace, replacing the turquoise gemstone chips with haematite.

This one was not so straightforward.

The customer asked for a mainly black and red necklace, she was drawn to the Red Jagged Edge necklace but wanted more orange in it and much longer so it could be worn doubled if required but would just go straight over the head when worn full length. The photograph doesn't really show much difference between the reds and oranges, but they are there when you meet the necklace in person! My offer this time was to see what I could come up with and the customer would be under no obligation to buy it if she didn't like it. I only make jewellery I like myself, that way if no-one else does, I can have it! So whilst I'm reasonably certain the first necklace will be well received, I have no idea whether this one will be!

Whilst I'm blogging, I thought I would mention a second freaky wildlife incident that happened to me last night. I was letting the dog out last thing at night before going to bed. I had the outside light on with the door open; I had a copy of Gardening Which? in my hand that I was planning to read in bed before going to sleep.

Suddenly I heard a commotion and looked up to see Missy and another creature squaring up to each other. It looked like a stoat but I think it was a bit bigger than the ones I saw playing in the snow earlier this year. It was so dark and as they were outside the arc of the light, I couldn't be sure but it might've have been a ferret. Either way, both are predators and have a nasty bite and I had visions of having to take Missy to the vet yet again. Despite the difference in size between the two of them, it was impressive that the stoat/ferret/whatevever wouldn't back down and wasn't at all intimidated by the fact that Missy was at least 10 times bigger!

I therefore ran over, picked her up and started to go back into the house and I noticed that the stoat/ferret/whatever was still there; it wasn't intimidated by me either and then ... then ... it started to charge towards me! In alarm I threw my copy of Gardening Which? at it and fled back into the house with Missy growling and grumbling at me in my arms. It was only 4-5 yards away but I slammed the door shut and then looked out of the glazed top and the stoat/ferret/whatever was lurking about right outside the door, it must've followed me! My heart was pumping like mad, after realising that it couldn't get me, this demented creature then went back to my copy of Gardening Which? shook it about a bit, got under it, chucked it up in the air and then ran off into the night leaving me shaking! I made DH go rescue my magazine (telling him to be very careful - all he did was laugh when I told him about it). It took me ages to get to sleep ... I think I prefer the kind of wildlife that visits the garden during the day time!

Daisies and bats

My lawn was well overdue for cutting this week. My lawnmower broke last time I cut it. As it's over 15 years old, I have been researching new ones on the Which On-Line website. I won't bore you with the details but I am very specific about what I need and it just doesn't seem to be available.

I will have to get my existing one fixed. In the meantime, it has been too hot to spend the marathon 3 hours it takes to do the huge lawns that I have here anyway. Today it was much cooler and a neighbour was kind enough to lend me their mower, but it seemed such a shame to cut all these lovely daisies down.

Speaking of the natural world, I was nodding myself to sleep in front of the News at 10 last night when Missy woke me up jumping up at what appeared to be absolutely nothing and then I realised that she was trying to catch a bat that was flying about in the lounge; it was a surreal moment, for a minute I thought I was dreaming. DH and I opened the door to the hallway and then the front door and kind of "herded" it out by waving our arms about at it.

It actually happened twice last year as well when I left the house windows open at around dusk, on one occasion last summer, we had two at the same time. There are lots of trees near to us which I guess is where they are roosting, I mustn't forget about open windows at dusk in the future!

Laura Sparling - lonelies prize draw

As you know, I'm always going on about Laura Sparling's lovely beads and she is having a prize draw. If I mention it in my blog and link to the draw, I get entered into the prize draw twice so stand more chance of winning. 'Nuff said. :-)

PMC spacers

A couple of weeks ago, a little while after Missy's op, she had a minor set back when she started bleeding. The vet wasn't concerned as long as she was bright and not listless. He said it's not uncommon for a blood clot to form at the site of the operation if she'd overdone something. As long as it only lasted 3-4 days, then it wasn't anying to worry about. Keeping a usually active dog quiet for 10 days is really difficult, you can't exactly nail their paws to the ground!

Anyway, it meant me keeping a close eye on her as the vet said to bring her straight back immediately if she started to act like she was feeling poorly. Instead of beadmaking in the garden studio with her possibly risking infection from lying on the grass, I worked indoors and made some PMC* spacers that I'd been wanting to try for ages to fit Pandora, Biagi, Troll etc. bracelets. Instead of drying the PMC flat, when the clay was still leather hard, I draped them over pencils, knitting needles, toothpicks etc to get different degrees of wavy-ness from them so when you've got more than one on your bracelet, it sets up different rythyms of spaces.

I got round to firing and polishing them up on Friday and the above photograph is the result.

They were really popular with my large hole Pandora style bead customers on Saturday. They all sold out, so thanks, Missy; I have a new product line!

Here is another photograph of a few on my own Pandora bracelet and you'll notice that the edges have been decorated on a couple. I ran out of time but I was going to patina these with liver of sulphur and then polish so the patina just rested in the grooves/holes. I shall be making more very soon and I have lots of ideas for variations and hopefully I'll have time to patina these before I sell them.

* For non-jewellery makers, PMC stands for Precious Metal Clay. It is made from particles of fine silver, water and binder combined to make clay which is similar in texture to plasticine. It can be moulded, cut and shaped anyway you like when it's wet. When it's dry, you fire it in a kiln, the binder burns away, leaving behind fine pure silver.

What a knit

I got the yarn to knit this snuggly heavy duty cardigan when we were on holiday, DH paid for it as part of my birthday present, lovely man that he is. And look, unlike all the cardigans in the shops at the moment, it has arms that go all the way down to my wrists. I am such a fashion guru (not!) It was made on huge 8mm and 10mm needles and I knitted the pieces in 8 days flat! I really like the coconut shell buttons, the colour goes really nicely.

So if it knitted up so quick, why so long before I finished it? Well it was the sewing bit, I'm not that keen on sewing, especially by hand (except cross stitch which I quite enjoy ... doesn't make any sense does it? Even I don't try to understand the way my mind works!) That's the great thing about socks (especially toe up ones), no sewing.

Anyway, when I did get round to putting all the pieces together, I managed to sew the last arm onto the garment inside out! I was so cross with myself, I put it aside for quite a long time. Of course, now I've got it finished, the weather is beautifully warm and I could actually do with a lighter weight cardigan ...

Unfortunately, my sister, Sandy saw the cardigan during its period of neglect and I have been beseiged with texts since then taking the pee. So yes, I am a knit, yes, I have stitched myself up, yes, I am fed up with all the ribbing! ;-)