labor day antics

Puss

Pollination

Popsicles

Posh

Pantless

Party

hot dog

After six hours, this is what my gold now looks like. The end goal is 3 mm wire. I remelted it into a hot dog shape and then put it through the roller about a million times. I can only roll it about five times before I have to anneal it. Annealing involves heating it up until it almost melts and then putting it in the pickle (a liquid bath) to get rid of the "dirt" that gets on it from annealing. It keeps starting to crack along the top (you can kind of see this in the picture) and I've had to slightly remelt it once already to fix this. When you remelt it, you kind of have to start all over again. I'm trying to be patient.

$425 worth of gold

Can you believe it's so small? I created this alloy last week by combining 24 karat gold with a tiny bit of silver and copper. You pick the color you want your gold to look like and then use a handy chart to figure out how much silver/copper to add to get that color. I went for Very Deep Yellow, 18 karat, which should be a bit darker than the usual color you see.
Yesterday I went to R Gems in the city to pick out a stone for the ring. I've always loved rocks and gems (even had a rock tumbler as a kid) so I could have spent hours looking at all of their stones. I ended up with a garnet (my birthstone) and a green quartz. I think I'll probably go with the garnet for this ring. They were super nice and even gave Scott and me a tour of the back where they cut the stones. The guy was saying that they use a diamond blade to cut the stones and this type of blade won't hurt your finger if you touch it. He fired it up to show us and pressed his finger against it firmly and sure enough nothing happened. Then he took a rock to it and it cut right through. I'm a little confused about how exactly that happened.

First Piece

I got to reminiscing about the very first piece I made when I started taking metalsmithing classes back in SF. The days of the deer (and big belts) are slipping away, but I still love this buckle (especially the green eye!).

Tonight I'm starting a gold class at 174 Studio in Williamsburg. I've only worked in silver, brass, copper, etc. so I'm super excited to work with a new metal. We start with pure 24 karat gold and custom alloy it to create 14 karat gold in a custom color. Then I'll make a piece with it. Stay tuned...

Working so hard

Perfect Summer Stoop Sipper

2007 Chateau Montaud Rose, Cotes de Provence

My local wine shop directed me towards this rose that is great for a late summer evening spent sitting on the stoop gossiping with neighbors. It smells of strawberries and melon and is the most pale pink in color. It is also refreshingly dry while still retaining some nice fruit flavors. And it's low in alcohol (labeled at 12%) so you can have many glasses without guilt or hangover. Yum!

Tat

I got a tattoo last week. It's a zinfandel leaf. Zinfandel isn't my most favorite type of wine, but we grew old-vine zinfandel on the vineyard I grew up on so it's a sentimental choice. Thanks to sweet Lulu for helping with design.