ouchy

for a long time now my neck as been killing me. off and on for years, but recently more on than off.
part of me had gotten used to the pain; part of me thought i was being a baby; part of me thought it would go away eventually.....so anyway, i finally decided to go to the doctor. i got an mri (clang, clang, clang) done, and here's one of the the pictures...

see how those 2 disks are bulging out of their assigned location and PRESSING ON MY SPINAL CORD?! so, apparently i wasn't making it up or being a baby. also, not going to go away. trying cortizone shots first. a last resort would be surgery to fuse that section of my neck. yuck.
more jewelry news tomorrow-or maybe knitting, who knows?!

keum BOO HOO :o(

the lighting in my classroom at 6:45am...not so great.
it's not totally clear from these images, but with my naked eye it appears that my gold has virtually disappeared. does tumbling force the gold into the surface of the silver, like it's absorbed?
i will try another layer on one of the pieces as it is and then if (when) it doesn't work, i'll toss everything back in the kiln to get it to white, reapply the gold, heat and burnish and then ONLY brass brush it, rather than tumbling...
sound good? anyone?

keum-boo!!!

so...i've MINIMALLY tried the keum-boo before....trying to hold a torch, hold the piece down and burnish all at the same time was onerous.

well, i took myself out to target and bought the appropriate equipment (a hot plate) and decided to give it a try again on these earring elements. i painted on my aura22 (2-3 layers), let it dry and then put it on my hotplate to heat up. it was upsetting to the family to have the smoke detector go ff at 10:30pm because of the gold binder burning off, but after that things went pretty smoothly....bracing the silver pieces with wooden shish-kebab skewers and burnishing with my stainless steel printmaking burnisher (i think i need an agate burnisher). there were some areas that i couldn't squeeze the burnisher in so they still look like dried aura22....i'm hoping when i toss them in the tumbler those areas will get burnished, rather than just washing away...

finished, and work-in-progress

an hour and a half of blocking-time later...the sweater is finished but still lacks buttons. i'm ambivalent about it.
new project...socks knit on what feels like toothpicks in that orange/brown/pink/purple colorway. we'll see if the socks get finished (ever) ...i can't tell you how many single socks i've made...who really wants to make the exact same thing a second time? also, wool season might be quickly turning back to silver season.....i have a bunch of supplies coming from rio grande mid-week next week...more pmc, stick pearls, chocolate pearls, etc....

tedius

just when i get done congratulating myself on having developed a cool pattern that i can memorize that adds a little unusual surface to an otherwise plain sweater...reality bites me on the butt. i hate to sew seams of knitted things, so all of my sweaters are made on long double pointed flexible needles now. well...i also hate to block (steam flat) knitted items. this dang honeycomb pattern requires me to steam EACH CIRCLE SEPARATELY to make sure they end up the correct shape. ugh. the next sweater is going to be stockinette stitch, top to bottom.