Deliciousness by Nova Designs

I've loved Nova Designs for an age - Tess, the talented artist behind the gorgeousness, is an amazing, amazing jeweller. Her signature pinwheel designs actually -spin-, and they are so full of beautiful whimsy.

She's also having a giveaway so do check it out - nothing I say could ever do justice to her beautiful creations!

I mean, just LOOK at these. How could anyone not covet a pair of beautiful spinning earrings like that, or a pendant that one could play with?



Image: Nova Designs

What I Need More Of...

Love, light, and peace.

Some time with family, and a quiet sanctuary where the long arm of people and to-do lists can't reach.

Time to be still.

Quietness and confidence. And strength.

Being Blonde, or, The Lunch Date

For Kenny Mah, because.

Morning text message. I'm half-awake and still drowsy, but reading it makes me smile. We've been wanting to catch up for ages, and today's the day at last, and it -will- happen because we've planned for it and it better, or else...well there's no 'or else'. It is happening, and that's that.

I'm late. Of course I'm late, these days it seems to be a chronic (and unfortunate) trademark. I could cite the bus, or the mosque traffic, but I'll just knuckle down and say that yes, I got out of the house later than expected while seeing to stuff, and my time management needs a lot of work. My brain reminds me you're going to be so hungry given how late it is now. I make a mental note to do better next time.

Next time. I hope there will be a next time anyway.

It rains the minute I get out of the bus, which I should have expected, and stops the minute I get into the LRT station - which I also should have expected. Never mind, I'm there at the agreed meeting point, and there you are, reading (a totally unnecessary purchase, you tell me, but I understand. My bookshelf is testament to this.) I always forget how tall you are till I hug you. Then again, I'm short. It evens out.

So there's that little adventure of the stuck parking ticket, and the impossible maze that's the parking lot exit and a car window that refuses to cooperate winding back up. You try to apologise, but me, I don't mind. It's good to be out of the house, it's good to be not thinking so much about crap, it's good to be with you, and that's all there is to it. I'm an adventure magnet. These are what memories are made of.

Indian food. I love it, so do you, and this is a part of town I've never been in before - even better.

Lunch comes. I talk too much. I always do. Even more so when I get a little nervous, but today, that's not the case. Why am I trying to be sensible and profound when I know I'm nothing of the sort? When I catch myself it's already too late, I've prattled on like a ditz and I think, oh gods, stop being blonde you idiot, this isn't Wicked, you're not Glinda. If this were a date, it'd never get off the ground. You don't seem to mind, for which I'm thankful; your company is relaxing, which is what I badly need right now, and it always is wonderful to catch up with you in person after so many messages, texts, and emails.

There never seems to be enough time to say everything that we want to say. My conversation is like a scratched CD, skipping from place to place to topic to other topic with bewildering speed. I only realise this after we finish lunch. If I'm not blonde, I'm doing a pretty convincing imitation. You carry the conversation as calmly and serenely as a palm-fringed oasis. Gods, I wish I had that sort of poise, something I mentally make note of to learn before I get mistaken for a hyperactive child off medication.

It's days like this I miss, conversations and company like this that I crave desperately when things go awry and when stress levels create their own overwhelming Richter scale. You put things in perspective, and for that I am so grateful. For a few hours at least, the knots in my psyche loosen and unravel, and the world seems much more bearable.

Thank you. Today was a much-needed gift. The next time, I'll be punctual - and less blonde.



Photo credit: Waterfall Yin

The Socratic Creed of Examinations

...which explains why I am neck-deep in examinations until mid-December, and why I have turned into even more of an elusive hermit than before.

I'm wondering how on earth I'm going to survive the next two weeks, when none of my coursework seems to want to come together, my vocal exam pieces are complete disasters, and my musicianship homework is in a shambles (granted, I did procrastinate on numbers 1 and 3 so it's no one else's fault but my own.)

If Socrates were here, I'd assassinate him without hesitation. Or remorse.

Which probably means it's time for bed.

Drama, Texture, and Smoking Brides

Kim Klassen is amazing with textures. I stumbled onto her page by accident through reading something else, and I was hooked.

Enough that I stayed up till 4am for two days messing around with textures and photographs. This of course is intentional sleep deprivation but I'm not blaming anything except my magpie attention span for it.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

This post of Kim's caught my eye, especially Day 1 - Adding Drama. So I dug out some photographs I took when I was travelling in Austria for the World Choir Games this year, and had a go at it.

Which (after some instruction tweaking as I'm using Photoshop CS2 rather than CS4) resulted in this:



I nicknamed this lady the Smoking Bride for obvious reasons. She seemed to be somewhat annoyed as well, apparently waiting for her wedding car driver, and she did tend to speak rather loudly (though whether that's just a language thing or actual annoyance, I couldn't tell. I went by the cranky expression.)


And because I couldn't leave well enough alone, I tweaked the photo with one of Kim's textures, added in some gorgeous brushes from Annika Von Holdt, and voila - vintage ephemera ahoy:



After years and years of resistance, finally I seem to have caught the Photoshop bug. I don't know whether it's good or bad - the last thing I need is a new distraction, with production, graduation, and exams coming up...

Ah, heck with it. I'm filing it under Rest and Relaxation.

And yes, THAT'S my story and I'm STILL sticking to it.

Inspiration Room Challenge: Rococo Nouveau

So. There was this challenge photograph posted one balmy day by the brilliant Deryn Mentock. (All right, it was mostly hot and muggy here, but I'm taking artistic license here. Liberally.)

With the photograph was an immensely eye-opening and wonderful link on how to make a colour palette. Don't go there if you don't have time to spare. It's addictive, this colour palette business. I was supposed to just mosey over and look, but I wound up spending the rest of the hour working on the colour palette because it was so fascinating.

Which resulted in this:


...and, after some precious lessons on why it is not a good idea to start working on challenge pieces after midnight on a long day (crooked wire, bad wraps, even more crooked wraps which now litter half the finished work), THIS is the result:



And now onto better photographs when I'm -not- trying to wear a piece and take a picture. Details on colour scheme and various bits of the piece:


The pendant is half an earring that I bought and never used, so I recycled it.







Clasp detail at the back, the best I could do because I was lying on the floor at a really funny angle trying to take this!


The clasp proper. Ignore the crooked wrapped link, move along, nothing to see...

Originally I thought it looked Gothic. Then after I finished the piece, I realised it wasn't Gothic, nor Classical Gothic, it was Rococo. So Rococo Nouveau it is!

And now off to post the link because for once, I actually finished a challenge ON TIME. Amazing. I hope the new owner likes it as much as I do!

Revisiting Once Upon A Time

From the old Noir Files dated back a few years:

There's always tragic endings in noir but there's always the most
memorable kisses. If I was Vivian, would you be Marlowe then? One kiss
to last a lifetime - maybe that's how it feels, under a stark white
moon with shadows like grey cats in the dark.

Tonight is a dime-store pulp novel - the hard-boiled detective with his infinite cheap cigarette, the dame with soot-black hair and tulip red lips, and the eternal dark in a small, stifling room with tawdry furniture just before the prelude to a kiss. The sheets are down, the rain is pattering like whiskery possum soft-shoe. There's all the time in the world.

And maybe - just maybe - the world turns on a kiss that's still waiting to be given and all that time, all those words, are just fillers till it happens.

Once upon a time, I could actually draw. And I could actually write stuff worth reading. Maybe that's a hint to get a kick in the pants and start practicing both again.

Words and Pictures

These days I'm more inclined to let pictures do the talking for me, so here is what I've been up to of late:


An attempt at Deryn Mentock's beautiful Boho Hoops; she's Da Woman, a fantastic teacher and a great mentor. Next time you offer this class, I'll be there!



Subversive Lace: Blue Buddha Boutique's Staggered Japanese Lace bracelet. 0.5mm, 0.6mm and 0.7mm rhodium-plated copper rings. It's subversive because of the enamel skull at the clasp behind...



Like so...



...to keep the clasp centered when I wear it.


And of course, can't forget:


Caipifruta in Graz, Austria, for the World Youth Choir Championships this July!
Photo credit: Tracy Wong



With Grupo Chorus from Brazil - some of my favourite people in the whole world. Caipifruta + Grupo Chorus = GrupoFruta/CaipiChorus. Viva! Viva!
Photo credit: Tracy Wong

So folks, that's what I've done and where I've been, and that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Sometimes...

...I wonder whether it's worth pouring in so much effort for things, only to be proved a second-rate coach/operator/person time and time again. Because despite all my dreams, maybe that's just about as good as I'll ever get.

It's a wonderful feeling, knowing you always let people down.

Not To Scale

I don't want to live to scale - small life, small box. I want to live large, dream big, make it count.



I want to live, not merely exist.

I don't think it's too much to try for.

The Dangers of Being Fred

I tend to have surreal conversations with my friends. Today is no exception, with the result that a chat about art prompts interspersed with random bits about Cthulhu plus my distinct lack of drawing practice, birthed this little monstrosity.

The prompt, incidentally, was 'Fred'. No, I don't know why this came to mind. My mind is a scary, scary place, as evidenced by the appearance of John Constantine in My Little Pony trench coats.



I suspect need a SAN check now.

The Importance of Being Uncomfortable

Part of my sketchbook project - never tried Victorian lettering before and might not try it again!


This year, I set myself a resolution to make myself uncomfortable.

Not in the 'sleep on bed of nails every night and torture myself with really bad music' sort of way. More of a determination that if something comes along that isn't creepy, makes me panic at the thought of having to do it, and has the occasional makings of the impossible, I'll jump in and give it a shot.

There's a rationale to this twisted logic as crazy as it sounds.

It all boils down to this: I'm a person who abhors change. It was fine when I was still in university, but a series of moves across three continents in succession gave me a distinct disinclination towards upheaval. Stability, a place to come home to without having to constantly live out of suitcases - more and more, that got to be something imminently desirable. My gluten intolerance only compounded this, as travelling on a gluten-free diet? It gets hairy sometimes, and I dislike being ill even more than I dislike upheaval.

For the past two years though, I've been restless and fidgety, and I couldn't quite pinpoint why. Not until last year and only because I had to sit down and be brutally honest with myself - I'm discontented. I miss doing things that I used to. I feel stuck in a rut and creatively unfulfilled, and all in all, it was leading to a downright spiral of depression. The biggest reason? I'm afraid. I see new things and I think oh, that's great, but I'm too much of a coward to step up and say, Sure, why not.

The move to this new place last year was the beginning of a sort of mental shakeup. New place. New life. New things. Why was I still sticking to my comfort zone and bitching, when really, whose fault was it?

So this year? I've accepted two teaching positions that terrify the -crap- out of me. I don't feel capable, and I don't feel comfortable at -all- taking them because of the age groups involved - but the only way I'm going to grow is to stretch myself and -make- myself do it.

I've registered for an online jewellery class taught by a wonderful friend and mentor even though I'm scared stiff I won't do well and that I might have difficulty getting a butane torch and I might burn the place down due to stupidity. If I call myself an artist, I need to expand my skills - and being a cicak under a rock and bewailing my lack of 'em ain't going to get me anywhere. So it's kick-myself-in-the-butt time - knuckle down and just do it.

I'm trying to jab myself into resuming learning one new language. I figure if I want to say I'm bored, I can at least say it in the lingo of another country, which will make it slightly more interesting.

And I took a bookbinding class way out at the other end of the world this January because even though it was a crazy commute and I had to end early to go back to teach, I figured it was worth it. I've wanted to take that class for years. What's a little difficulty getting there anyway? Composers like Bach and Scarlatti -walked- to the next TOWN to hear concerts - that's harder than taking the LRT and making two or three changes, right?

Be less lazy, more forgiving, more productive, learn more stuff I've always meant to but haven't - that's what I'd like for this year. And let's not forget achieve very hard but not impossible things, like a win for Caipifruta at Graz this July for the World Choir Championships.

The importance of being uncomfortable - it keeps you from stagnation, and the pain of an overly large backside.

The New Year Rising and the Helm of Dreams

For Kenny, after reading about libraries and Neil Gaiman's marriage

How I loved him. Every night, waiting so eagerly to slip into sleep, easy as a scalded peach slips its skin – but of course, he was only a figment of fiction and I could hope, I could dream that perhaps I’d see his eyes as I’d written in a story so long ago.

Dream’s eyes. The Corinthian had none, only sockets capable of so much blood.

How she loved him, Jade the White-Haired. She’s found in no canon other than the long-forgotten annals of role-play in the Endless’ extensive universe – a demon in the shell of a scorned, betrayed girl, each tattoo on her beautiful, tebori-marked body a soul that she’d claimed. And of course, she fell in love with eyes that were pools of shadow with glimmers of light within. She didn’t mean to, but she did, and every night in sleep she would wait to see them. Hope for them to appear.

Her secret that she likely carried to the ends of forever, this. When the role-play universe of that world ended, she walked hand-in-hand with Dream and vanished into the distance, united at last with the one she had grown to love so well. I like to think that she was happy at last, and that she gave him pleasure too, the time they spent together.

A beautiful fiction invented to keep out the cold, to quote Vienna Teng’s beautiful ballad Blue Caravan. I too wanted to escape the mundane and search for the exotic, the fantastical, the greener grass on the other side of some mythical pasture far across the sea. Well. I can’t say ‘wanted’ when I still do, really.

The legacy of Dream’s Helm, isn’t it? Finding it buried in the corners of the mind deliberately left untouched for years, not being able to resist the temptation to pick it up and slip it on despite the bony spine, the bulbous skull, the alien, almost frightening appearance.

Because in the end, the need to dream, to wish, to yearn for, is sometimes as necessary as breath. Old desires, long-suppressed, sternly forgotten against one’s will, bubbling slowly to the surface in an instant of unexpected trigger – news of an old friend, now a successful author and recording artiste; the marriage of a writer/artist whom you’d always harboured a secret crush on; the jet-setting, exciting lives of acquaintances and more friends; the plans of dear ones.

None of it bad, of course, no such thing – in fact, you’re thrilled for them – but the secret little yearning reaches its tendrils out and tugs at the heart, whispering, ‘You wanted that life too, many, many dreaming ago. Now look where you are...’

So many heart-burnings. So many acid recriminations against the self, against the workings of the life you’re leading, against how mundane it all seems compared to the rest.

And yet – and yet – a little small still voice floats up from the depths of the envy abyss yawning in front of you, like hope in Pandora’s box.

Lives, it says. Your students. The lives you teach in this new life you’ve begun by accident and continued by choice. The ones that you can perhaps can make a difference to, the ones whom you have made a difference to.

I weigh them, as I’ve weighed them again and again – my life now, my students, my work, against the words I always dreamed of writing, the unknown artist I dreamed of marrying, the life I might have had if only I’d stayed in another country instead of returning home.

And what I know now, as I knew then but refused to accept, was that contentment is learned. It is a decision not based on the heart, but rooted in commitment and the surety that a life can count, if you make it do so.

So I sit here, holding Dream’s Helm between my hands – so heavy and smooth, this marvel of bone and memory! – and I wish the abyss away, close it with a decision. I’ll do it many, many times in the days and months that make up the year.

Because whatever else I might have dreamed and yearned for, this life counts, and I make it count only if I seize each day, each year of it and keep moving on. More often than not it’s plodding and trudging, but I have made my choice on what I value and what matters in the long run – and with that, comes contentment and peace with myself.

The Helm is heavy on my head, comfortable even. It promises flight and new dreams and even journeys into the past, pleasant or unpleasant. Oh I’ll indulge, I know - I can’t help it, I might even linger a little in those dark, familiar depths.

But I won’t be confined there. I must keep moving. Because in the end, life is short and the lives along the way are precious, and there is work to be done – and that, I think, is what matters.

Almost Home

And once again I've let the blog go for a few months before updating. I know, I know. I'm always apologising for this, but the truth of the matter is, I -have- been busy with some key things in life.

I've just been through a crazy three week period in which my first jewellery bazaar and my 2nd level Australian Kodaly Certification went head-to-head. I survived both with sanity a little less than intact, and passed my certification exams far better than I expected.

And got a bout of gluten poisoning/food poisoning to celebrate.

But this morning, some friends and I went to help out at a house - the little boy's room needed painting, and the mother needed the wire nettings on the windows changed and some water pipes fixed. It's hard to be a single parent, working as many hours as she does, and I really admire her. I couldn't stay long because my stomach decided to run riot, but I was very glad I could be there for even a short time to help clean.

One more week till I go home for a much-needed break. One more level before I finally get the full Australian Kodaly Certification I've been working on for two years.

In more than one way, I'm almost home. And it's a good feeling.

Wednesdays with Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef: Pizza Pizza!

I've been absent from my blog for a looooong time - most of this is due to life throwing up a lot of busy-busy-busy with very little time to do any jewellery or creativeness that way. Well, that and I've been travelling - this time, I've just come back from Vietnam - Hanoi to be exact! A few of us in the choir I sing with travelled there at the invitation of the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra to sing in a huge-scale celebration of Hanoi's 1000th birthday. The repertoire was Mahler's 8th Symphony, nicknamed 'The Symphony of a Thousand', making it particularly fitting (and challenging, but that's another blog post altogether. Hanoi deserves one of its own.)

The week before I left for Hanoi however, Shauna of Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef blog mentioned something very exciting - Wednesdays cooking from her new book, Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. If you don't know who Shauna is, she is one of the most inspirational people in the food blogging world that I know of. She's spunky, caring, innovative, and she's been one of the biggest influences in my life as far as being able to survive gluten-free goes.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to get hold of her book yet so I wasn't sure I was going to be able to take part in the Wednesday cooking sessions, and left it at that. However, thanks to Michael Ruhlman's interview with Carol Blymire of 'Alinea at Home' and 'French Laundry at Home' fame, I -was- able to participate in this week's Wednesday - baking pizza!

This is -me- of course, so I -had- to run into problems first reading of the recipe. Corn flour. Now...here in Malaysia, that's what I call corn starch. But corn starch had already been mentioned in the recipe so I was pretty sure that wasn't what was being asked for. A bit of slightly confusing research drew up an article that mentioned Southern cooking and the silky smooth flour made from finely-ground corn meal. Ahhhhhhhhhhh. That helped.

Except I didn't have any of that, and the nearest thing to hand was maize meal, rather coarse-ground. To heck with it, I thought about it for a moment, then grabbed the maize meal, weighed it out on the rickety contraption that -calls- itself a manual kitchen scale but in reality should be more 'Cook's Domestic Torment', and went right ahead with the recipe.

By golly, it worked.



I am not the world's best photographer so the first shot I got of the pizza coming out of the oven is cringe-worthy (and I forgot I had a camera tripod). But I was far, far too excited to even think about proper photography at the time - I had PIZZA. Glorious, safe, pizza!

(Rolling dough into a circle, however - that's another story. The adage that anyone who can draw a freehand circle will make a good artist? LIES. -MY- circle looked like someone patched together a 2-year old's sense of geometry and mangled it with a Picasso perspective. Thankfully, that's got no bearing on the taste of it or I'd be in trouble by now.)

This morning, I got some better pictures of the project that hopefully do the recipe a bit more justice.





Notes:
1) I mixed up the entire batch of flour and realised that my small oven wouldn't contain a 10" crust, let alone anything bigger. So I halved it. I didn't need to do a thing to the recipe otherwise, apart from adding just a little more water to bind the dough properly when it was getting mixed together - and that likely because my measurement for the oil was a little off.

2) The dough was a bit wet and sticky to handle for rolling. When putting it between two sheets of parchment paper didn't work, I removed the top sheet of parchment paper and substituted it with plastic wrap instead. Once rolled out, I took the entire thing, parchment paper and all, and put it on my baking sheet as I don't have a pizza stone. I was afraid that not sprinkling the bottom with corn meal might make the whole thing stick, but as it turned out, I needn't have worried. The crust came off the parchment paper beautifully. I also will try rolling the dough out thinner and using a different flour to see if that makes any difference to overall texture; I might need to bake the crust for a bit longer to get it browner and crisper.


Taste-wise? FANTASTIC. I topped this crust with tomato puree, spinach, black pepper smoked pork strips, green apples and parmesan. The one remaining crust in the fridge is going to get eaten soon; perhaps I'll try roasted eggplant, home-made tomato sauce and bacon. Either way, I would make this again in a heartbeat. Thank you so much Shauna, for this beautiful recipe!

Celebrations and Catching Up

So before this update gets even tardier, let me just set the record straight:

1) I'm back from China!

2) We won three Gold Diplomas - Gold IV in Folklore with the Young KL Singers, Gold V in Jazz with my quartet, Caipifruta, and Gold II in Pop, also with Caipifruta.

3) Overall the Malaysian contingent came back with their heads high - the MIA Ladies Chorus were the champions in their category, winning a Gold medal in the category for Female Chamber Choirs! Not only that, the Malaysian choirs scored a total of about 7 gold medals and 5 silvers - not a single bronze, how about that for hard work. YEAH.

4) I'm moving house so it might be another stretch before I update again. Hopefully not -too- long a stretch of time.

So, before I dash off to pack, let me leave you with a few photographs from China:


The Caipifruta Vocal Quartet, doing soundcheck for the Jazz competition.


More soundchecking! It was also 8am in the morning, so those smiles were partly for our own benefit as was kind of too early to be singing ANYTHING, let alone jazz.


The quartet just before the Pop competition. Twiggy pose!


Don't remember who took this photo, but here are the Girls being all model-like.


And we pose for a postcard...

All the above photographs (except the disclaimered one) taken by our amazing pianist, Tay Cher Siang, who is an equally amazing photographer. I mean, just -look- at those shots!

More updates when I finish The Move of Doom - but if you really do want to know what I've been up to for the last month and before, hop on over to the Caipifruta Blog for a more detailed explanation. There's even pictures!

Up, Up, and Awaaaaaaaaaaay!

Incredible how fast time passes, but the Big Day is finally here! I'm leaving for China later on to compete in the World Choir Games held from 15th - 28th July in Shaoxing.

I will most likely be internetless for the entire duration, since I'm not bringing Siggard in case of accidents (my laptop, not a significant other, just to set the record straight). Besides, a lot of sites are blocked in China so the only thing I might be able to access in a net cafe will be my email account.

Hello world. I'm coming to kick some serious butt, hopefully not my own.

Till the 28th, au revoir! (I might even have sketches to show if all goes well.)

Maille on the Brain, Maille on the Brain...*sung to tune of Pants on the Ground*

My wonderful brother, who has gifted me with more useful things than anyone I know, recently ordered me a pair of Eurotool Ultra Ergo Pliers from Blue Buddha Boutique, where I got my lovely aluminium and stainless steel rings. I made the mistake of wrecking my current wire-work pliers while trying to work with the stainless steel rings, and I figured it was time to get proper chainmaille tools if I was going to be weaving maille for a while (and since I seem to default to that, it may just be my Fatal Fascination.)

Well, they arrived, and I've been going bananas with 'em since. They are absolutely -wonderful-, and they stand up to 16ga stainless steel rings beautifully! I never knew what a difference good tools could make - sort of stupid admission there, coming from a chainmailler-in-training, but since they're not available here, I've never had a chance to work with them.

The results of my labours, in between choir competition rehearsals and teaching, are as follows. Yes, the stainless steel rings gap a bit; I'm still working on being strong enough to close them entirely and I'm aware it might be considered shoddy work amongst proper chainmaillers and elite of the elite. So if there are complaints on that score, yes, I know it already, and I invite you to try working with 16ga or 18ga 6.4mm stainless steel rings or any form of low-gauge stainless steel if you haven't done so before. Then come and bitch at me.

(If it seems like I'm constantly doing disclaimers, well, it's because I'm fed-up of back-biting and sniping and people thinking I might be trying to cheat buyers with such bad craftsmanship. If I don't think it's good enough, I don't sell it. End of story.)


Moon in a Barrel Earrings: Barrel weave, 18ga 5.6mm stainless steel.

Rebeca of Blue Buddha Boutique has a design called Crescent Earrings. Since the finishing rings of my barrel-weave pair were inspired by her design (and they do look like a crescent moon, the two different sized rings put together!) I've named the design 'Moon in a Barrel' as homage.



Pink and Indigo Blues: Barrel weave, 18ga 6.4mm stainless steel, 18ga 6.4mm anodized aluminium, 19ga stainless steel hand-hammered clasp

This particular mix of anodized aluminium is called 'Berry', but it didn't look very berry-like after it was all woven up with stainless steel. The name's the result of deciding Indigo Blues didn't quite cover that startling pink in the bracelet; it's rather lame I know but I didn't have any better ideas.



Candy Stripe Earrings: Barrel weave, 20ga 3.2mm stainless steel and anodized aluminium, glass beads

Why yes, I've been on a bit of a barrel weave kick, why do you ask? The AR (aspect ratio) of these little danglies didn't allow for a second anodized aluminium ring and while I wasn't too sure I liked it at first, they've grown on me steadily with a kind of old-fashioned candy charm. They looked like traffic lights until I added the glass bead. Then they started looking more like candy stripes, so Candy Stripe Earrings they became.

I'd also finished a necklace with a Japanese flower and chainmaille centrepiece a'la the chainmaille edition of Wirework Magazine, but I forgot about it, until it was too dark to photograph. End of this week perhaps, when I finish with the insanity of the Malaysian Choral Eisteddfod, for which I'll be teaching alto sectionals for the next few days. In the meantime, I'll probably throw up some pictures of some older projects that should've been up, but which got neglected due to life and other madnesses.

Fascinating Chainmaille, oh won't you stop picking on me!

The Lunar at Night

One of my best friends ever visited me at the end of March. I've written about Jeremy before in another post, and he remains one of the only friends from my university days whom I actually -see- on a semi-regular basis. All right, so two years isn't really semi-regular, but given I haven't seen my entire batch of crazy US friends since 2003 - well, you get the picture.

In between juggling work and catching up, I sat through several RPG gaming sessions with Jer and the Bloke, and one day I actually brought along some wire to fiddle around with while we played. Not having a very clear idea beyond 'pendant', I free-formed it and wrapped away with a cheerful optimism that should have been an advanced warning.

Well. The pendant took about a week to complete because like a typical dimwitted ninny, I miscalculated the curvature of the two frames I was wiring together and it turned out lopsided. The result was an imbalanced piece of nicely wired crap which bugged the daylights out of me because it wouldn't hang straight. This lopsidedness got even worse when I wrapped the -heavier- half of it with silver beads (yes, very smart I know. What was I thinking --oh wait. I wasn't.) In the end, I had to add some silver beads to the other side of the frame to compensate - but even then it wasn't quite enough to offset the weight disparity. Finally, I ended up hanging a focal bead and a curved silver piece from the centre loop and that more or less did the trick.

Moral of the story: Calculate your frame right to begin with, and you won't wind up with a design headache like I did. Just saying.

Because I'd used anodised steel wire and silver beads for the pendant frame, I wanted to call it something Dark and Gothic and Night-like. When I put in the blue focal pearl, I thought it looked rather like a hanging moon - so in honour of the game, the character I was playing and the fact that I'd worked on it while gaming, the piece got christened Lunar.


Lunar: Anodised 18ga and 24ga steel, pewter beads, 20ga artistic wire, blue cultured pearl.


See how the frame gets lopsided? Yep, kids, don't try this at home. It makes you crazy. It still doesn't hang straight enough for me despite the fixes.


I thought I could get away with not wrapping the top loops but they looked too bulky and uncouth so they got covered up.

I'll consider this a prototype and see if I can't refine it any further. Anodized steel wire is a joy to work with; I should really give it a bit more attention.

And next time, I -measure- both frames and secure them -properly- before I start wrapping away like a crazed cat for cream.

The Strange Attraction of Opposites

Some months ago, I was commissioned by a friend to make a bridesmaid's jewellery set. Her only stipulations were that it be simple, elegant and fuss-free.

Given that the bridesmaid dresses were fuschia and white, I thought Swarovski pearls might add just the touch of elegance necessary. I also wanted to use whatever I had on hand in the interests of keeping costs reasonable, and also because I've been trying to exercise more creativity in the reinvention/upcycling/recycling of materials that might not otherwise be seen as 'jewellery components' at first glance.

My friend is a big proponent of recycling and being environmentally conscious. Digging through my stash of stuff, I discovered I had leftover metal washers from a previous project, and enough headpins and eyepins to last about fifty years (all right, I'm exaggerating, but I've got quite a bit of those things lying around). I also had a sheet of aluminium that's been crying out to be used for a bit since I got my jeweller's saw at the beginning of this year. I'd been wanting to experiment with texturing as well, since I've got a chasing hammer that's only been used for flattening metal up to this point.

The result was aptly named 'The Strange Attraction of Opposites' in honour of pearls meeting metal washers. I gave it an adjustable 52cm (approximately 20")chain that could be set to either matinee or choker length, depending on the dress. The earrings measure about 6.5cm (just a little over 2.5") and the pendant is 2.4cm (approximately a little over 1") in diameter.


The Strange Attraction of Opposites: Swarovski pearls, rhodium-plate jump-rings, silver-plated eyepins, metal washers, hand-cut and textured aluminium pendant.


Pendant detail, with a bit more of the texturing visible.


Earrings.


Earrings, another (slightly more artsy) view.


Oh yes, my friend loved it. Even better!