So I really honestly do know that I am not, nor have I ever likely been, mediocre. But there does seem to be some lingering spider webby bits of a veil that was thrust over me in my early years. I'm scrubbing hard and am tantalizingly close to shredding the last remnants. And while I also know that everything I need is within me, words of encouragement along the way are a nice pat on the back, a pleasant nudge to stay on track.
Today's horoscope:
"More than ever before, you'll feel as though it is time to take matters into your own hands and build your own career future. You are fed up with living on hope and putting off your happiness until tomorrow. Your determination will be so strong that you may even surprise yourself. Tomorrow, you'll refine your approach and make it more concrete. Today is the first day of a new life for you, dear Sagittarius."
And from today's Abraham quote ...
"Everything in its perfect time. Everything is unfolding. And I'm enjoying where I am now, in relationship to where I'm going. Content where I am, and eager for more,"
onward ......
blessings - kvk
28 February 2011
26 February 2011
yahoo buckaroos!
Gotta say, it's been a good long while since I had anything on Etsy. They've been busy over there doing all sorts of fancy updating and adding all kinds of features that I do not understand - all kinds of apps and I don't know what all and bunches of new features and benefits, some of which I quite like. But I have finally listed four new pieces, updated my banner and whatever else I could think of. So, if you feel so inclined, click here or in the sidebar, give it a perusal and see what you think - hey, maybe buy something! That would be lovely!
ttfn
with enormous gratitude and many blessings - kvk
p.s. please send your thoughts, love and prayers to my dear friend Nina and her family.
ttfn
with enormous gratitude and many blessings - kvk
p.s. please send your thoughts, love and prayers to my dear friend Nina and her family.
25 February 2011
sneak peek
While riding my emotional pendulum, I've actually been getting a fair amount of work done. Wholesale orders, special orders, repairs and best of all ... NEW WORK! And the really incredible thing is, I'm actually going to list some pieces on Etsy tomorrow. Kind of a Ripley's Believe It or Not moment.
So I've decided to post a sneak peek of two seriously wonderful new pieces.
You've seen the focal point of this first piece ... I finally figured out what to do with the jeweled pendant I showed you way back in January in this post. I came up with the bail idea and then that assembly's been sitting on my worktable waiting for inspiration. I spent most of yesterday afternoon playing around with all sorts of combinations and then it all finally fell together in splendid fashion.
I love all the details ... the leather strap handcut and glued, silk wraps, the button closure - I forged a pmc pebble flat, then attached a KVK button with a tube rivet, and those jumbo pearls are the most delicious color that picks up all the colors of the tunduru sapphires in the pendant and bail. Actually, I'm going to reshoot this since the gemstone colors don't show up very well, but you get the general idea.
The other necklace in our sneak peek is a humdinger! I finally got back out to the Arboretum last week and pulled off at Bent Creek to gather a few quartz pebbles. I brought them home, chucked them in the tumbler for a couple of days to clean them up, drilled some holes and followed my nose from there on out.
The little jeweled drop is set with some of the new Songea sapphires I found on Ebay. The colors are perfect with the quartz. And then there's the retrofitted links that are just an excellent counterpoint to the rough stones. Everything's strung on my own dark espresso silk cord. Very very yummy!
There'll be more jeweled treasures to come as my mondo cache (1300 carats) of rubies and sapphires finally arrived from Thailand. And good golly do I love this stuff - basically gemstone gravel.
I've got another 500 carats of white sapphires coming and a bid in on 500 carats of peridot. One hopes that will hold me for awhile. I've also got some of the new PMC Pro coming and I'm really excited about seeing what it will do. I'm thinking I'll be back in the ring business pretty soon.
Rightio! So that's it for now. Look for at least four new pieces in my Etsy shop tomorrow afternoon.
ttfn along with happy blessings ('cause Django Rhinehardt's playing on Pandora) - kvk
So I've decided to post a sneak peek of two seriously wonderful new pieces.
You've seen the focal point of this first piece ... I finally figured out what to do with the jeweled pendant I showed you way back in January in this post. I came up with the bail idea and then that assembly's been sitting on my worktable waiting for inspiration. I spent most of yesterday afternoon playing around with all sorts of combinations and then it all finally fell together in splendid fashion.
I love all the details ... the leather strap handcut and glued, silk wraps, the button closure - I forged a pmc pebble flat, then attached a KVK button with a tube rivet, and those jumbo pearls are the most delicious color that picks up all the colors of the tunduru sapphires in the pendant and bail. Actually, I'm going to reshoot this since the gemstone colors don't show up very well, but you get the general idea.
The other necklace in our sneak peek is a humdinger! I finally got back out to the Arboretum last week and pulled off at Bent Creek to gather a few quartz pebbles. I brought them home, chucked them in the tumbler for a couple of days to clean them up, drilled some holes and followed my nose from there on out.
The little jeweled drop is set with some of the new Songea sapphires I found on Ebay. The colors are perfect with the quartz. And then there's the retrofitted links that are just an excellent counterpoint to the rough stones. Everything's strung on my own dark espresso silk cord. Very very yummy!
There'll be more jeweled treasures to come as my mondo cache (1300 carats) of rubies and sapphires finally arrived from Thailand. And good golly do I love this stuff - basically gemstone gravel.
I've got another 500 carats of white sapphires coming and a bid in on 500 carats of peridot. One hopes that will hold me for awhile. I've also got some of the new PMC Pro coming and I'm really excited about seeing what it will do. I'm thinking I'll be back in the ring business pretty soon.
Rightio! So that's it for now. Look for at least four new pieces in my Etsy shop tomorrow afternoon.
ttfn along with happy blessings ('cause Django Rhinehardt's playing on Pandora) - kvk
extracting a long buried thorn
A couple of days after my last post, my emotional pendulum took a wild swing to the dark side and it's been an enlightening trip back to this morning's ... well yes, I'm going to say it ... epiphany.
I can't really remember how it started, but here's how I wrote about it in mid-swing ...
I can't really remember how it started, but here's how I wrote about it in mid-swing ...
"Looking back at so many painful memories from adolescence ... feelings of being supremely uncool, a misfit. For so many years, an underlying desire to achieve fame and fortune solely as a 'f-u' to everyone who dissed me in school - seems to be a pretty common motivation. I grew up feeling surrounded by thwarted potential, that mediocrity had been forced onto me along with a suffocating sense of lack, there was never enough.
But in drawing the line in the sand and resolving to create a new life paradigm, that old thorn began to irritate, age old pain flaring up. The pain has brought the thorn to the surface. While still sore and slightly inflamed, the tip is now exposed, primed for extraction. It is right and it is time for all those painful memories to lose their edge. Time for the inflammation to be lanced, the wound flayed open to be bathed in healing light and love."
The need for forgiveness has been the underlying theme. Over the last couple of weeks I've felt the tension easing, those ancient wounds starting to heal. But it's felt like there was still a missing piece. Then during this morning's meditation, it hit me square in the heart ... it's all well and good to forgive all those that had 'done me wrong', but bottom line, the one person that really needed forgiving was myself. When that thought came to me, the tears started pouring and my mind swirled with a long stream of awful and not so awful things that emerged as a long list of regrets. It does no good to forgive someone else if I haven't forgiven myself.
So to make it official, I hereby extract that dreadful and ever so long buried thorn and shout out to the world ...
I FORGIVE MYSELF!
I am a dynamic light filled force, heaven bent on sharing the love and light
that radiates from my heart like a supernova.
The tears are still flowing, but I am filled with so much joy and with so much gratitude .....
blessings - kvk
p.s. if this resonates ... "TRUE FORGIVENESS is the master release process, a tool that opens the energy field of the 'body' and liberates destructive energies from within. Once you actually understand Forgiveness, you will never forgive anyone again. Forgiveness is not letting another off the hook for their offenses. The root meaning of Forgiveness in Aramaic is 'to cancel, untie or let loose.' It is a tool for changing a reality in the mind." ... you might enjoy visiting this website.
p.s. if this resonates ... "TRUE FORGIVENESS is the master release process, a tool that opens the energy field of the 'body' and liberates destructive energies from within. Once you actually understand Forgiveness, you will never forgive anyone again. Forgiveness is not letting another off the hook for their offenses. The root meaning of Forgiveness in Aramaic is 'to cancel, untie or let loose.' It is a tool for changing a reality in the mind." ... you might enjoy visiting this website.
06 February 2011
so much
So very much to be thankful for, to share, to reflect on, to do.
Life's been something of a whirlwind since my last visit. The greatest blessing right now - I've been able to maintain a new-found sense of resolve, the line has been drawn in the sand, the time is now, no longer when.
Inspiration has been coming from so many angles. There have been two really exceptional audio downloads from WhiteHotTruth. One a 20 minute conversation with Hiro Boga, I am now a big fan. And then an equally excellent mass phone call FireStarter session with Jonathan Fields and 2 brave volunteers. So much food for thought and good content. I've been 'stumbling' onto some great magazine and newspaper articles. Today's NY Times had two little jewels in the Style section. Here's a link to one of them. And a trip to Barnes & Noble resulted in a three gems, an Architectural Digest snippet on Donna Karan's new tabletop line, the Artful Blogger for some research I'm doing on an undisclosed future project (titter, titter - have to wait and see about that one) and finally, a lovely issue of American Craft.
We've had some glorious sunny days and Zoe's doing really well, as evidenced here ...
I've had an opportunity to revisit some old friends, jewelry component friends that is.
A surprise order for jangly bones gave me the opportunity to do some updating with new components. Must say, I still really love these components ...
And I've also revisited my Woodland series from two years ago. The first incarnation came into being soon after we moved to Asheville, inspired by these old mountains, the winter landscape and visions of woodland tinker folk and the land of faerie. I had made a lot of the components and sold several of the series, but ended up collecting all the unsold pieces and dismantling them, regularly gazing at the bits and pieces in my storage bins wondering how they would get reincarnated.
Then last week, I had one of those late night epiphanies. Languishing on my worktable was a bowl full of large would-be sterling chain links. A fair amount of silver was there and I knew I'd use them up one day and that day turned out to be January 27th. The idea - double up the long links to join the metal clay rings.
These were good ...
But I think these are so much more better ...
Cleaner lines, earthy but still contemporary and interesting. Next, I still liked the idea of the leather, but again wanted a cleaner silhouette. I sat at my worktable all last Sunday afternoon, cutting leather strips, gluing them together, figuring out the whole glue thing was in there as well, choosing the silk to wrap and then hours sitting there playing around with endless combinations for how the pieces would close. I needed a clasp that was low-tech, direct yet interesting, easy to operate and appropriate to the piece. After all those hours of diddling around with scraps of leather and silk, I am enormously pleased to share the delicious fruit of my labors. Here's the first version, about 19" long ...
And the clasp on the second one has a bit more of a flourish and the piece is 21" so that it can be worn as a bracelet, which looks amazing. Here's a close-up of the clasp ...
And a little different angle of the finished piece ...
It's hard to complain about a rotten night's sleep when this is the result.
And then there's so much to do!
I'm still itching to get back to my cast glass experiments, but they'll be on the back burner a bit longer. I'm pleased as punch to say that, after a seven year absence, Gallery of the Mountains at the Grove Park Inn is bringing my jewelry back in - the order is in progress on my worktable right now and I'll be heading back to it shortly. I've also figured out how I want to use the channel set gemstone pendant, the corkclay base is drying as we speak and the new metal clay bail design will get fired along with the GOM components. And as if I don't have enough to think about, I'm starting to look into creating my own line of perfume - how's that for random? I've got a friend from Port Townsend that used to make the most exquisite blends and my last little vial is running low and she's out of the perfume business. So's I emailed her yesterday and she emailed back and I've got a starting place. This will be a pretty long wait and see, but I think it's got potential. Then there's that aforementioned undisclosed project, which is going to remain undisclosed, that is in the infant stages of R&D.
Oh my yes, so much ... so very much. Blessings are raining down upon me and I'm about to bust. Ain't it grand?
sweet blessings to all - kvk
Life's been something of a whirlwind since my last visit. The greatest blessing right now - I've been able to maintain a new-found sense of resolve, the line has been drawn in the sand, the time is now, no longer when.
Inspiration has been coming from so many angles. There have been two really exceptional audio downloads from WhiteHotTruth. One a 20 minute conversation with Hiro Boga, I am now a big fan. And then an equally excellent mass phone call FireStarter session with Jonathan Fields and 2 brave volunteers. So much food for thought and good content. I've been 'stumbling' onto some great magazine and newspaper articles. Today's NY Times had two little jewels in the Style section. Here's a link to one of them. And a trip to Barnes & Noble resulted in a three gems, an Architectural Digest snippet on Donna Karan's new tabletop line, the Artful Blogger for some research I'm doing on an undisclosed future project (titter, titter - have to wait and see about that one) and finally, a lovely issue of American Craft.
We've had some glorious sunny days and Zoe's doing really well, as evidenced here ...
I've had an opportunity to revisit some old friends, jewelry component friends that is.
A surprise order for jangly bones gave me the opportunity to do some updating with new components. Must say, I still really love these components ...
And I've also revisited my Woodland series from two years ago. The first incarnation came into being soon after we moved to Asheville, inspired by these old mountains, the winter landscape and visions of woodland tinker folk and the land of faerie. I had made a lot of the components and sold several of the series, but ended up collecting all the unsold pieces and dismantling them, regularly gazing at the bits and pieces in my storage bins wondering how they would get reincarnated.
Then last week, I had one of those late night epiphanies. Languishing on my worktable was a bowl full of large would-be sterling chain links. A fair amount of silver was there and I knew I'd use them up one day and that day turned out to be January 27th. The idea - double up the long links to join the metal clay rings.
These were good ...
But I think these are so much more better ...
Cleaner lines, earthy but still contemporary and interesting. Next, I still liked the idea of the leather, but again wanted a cleaner silhouette. I sat at my worktable all last Sunday afternoon, cutting leather strips, gluing them together, figuring out the whole glue thing was in there as well, choosing the silk to wrap and then hours sitting there playing around with endless combinations for how the pieces would close. I needed a clasp that was low-tech, direct yet interesting, easy to operate and appropriate to the piece. After all those hours of diddling around with scraps of leather and silk, I am enormously pleased to share the delicious fruit of my labors. Here's the first version, about 19" long ...
And the clasp on the second one has a bit more of a flourish and the piece is 21" so that it can be worn as a bracelet, which looks amazing. Here's a close-up of the clasp ...
And a little different angle of the finished piece ...
It's hard to complain about a rotten night's sleep when this is the result.
And then there's so much to do!
I'm still itching to get back to my cast glass experiments, but they'll be on the back burner a bit longer. I'm pleased as punch to say that, after a seven year absence, Gallery of the Mountains at the Grove Park Inn is bringing my jewelry back in - the order is in progress on my worktable right now and I'll be heading back to it shortly. I've also figured out how I want to use the channel set gemstone pendant, the corkclay base is drying as we speak and the new metal clay bail design will get fired along with the GOM components. And as if I don't have enough to think about, I'm starting to look into creating my own line of perfume - how's that for random? I've got a friend from Port Townsend that used to make the most exquisite blends and my last little vial is running low and she's out of the perfume business. So's I emailed her yesterday and she emailed back and I've got a starting place. This will be a pretty long wait and see, but I think it's got potential. Then there's that aforementioned undisclosed project, which is going to remain undisclosed, that is in the infant stages of R&D.
Oh my yes, so much ... so very much. Blessings are raining down upon me and I'm about to bust. Ain't it grand?
sweet blessings to all - kvk
23 January 2011
things lost, things discovered
You see, the thing is, I just don't lose things. Lots of people do, I don't. The last time I lost something I really cherished was 1993. We were just starting a 3 week cross country road trip and I lost a favorite earring in the parking lot of a Taco Bell in Andrews, NC. We were well down the road before I realized it was missing - so long earring. So when I realized yesterday afternoon that a beloved pin had chosen to leave my tattered red canvas coat, I was not quite distraught, but seriously disappointed. We retraced all our steps from the day, no luck. I actually don't remember it being there when I put the coat on, so it could have very well taken flight the last time I wore the coat, whenever or wherever that was, I have no idea. The pin was one of the first things I ever fabricated from sheet silver, made during a silversmithing workshop at the Campbell Folk School, I'm thinking in either 1998 or '99. I loved it because it was my favorite thing from that class - reticulation - picture a delighted Kathy the pyromaniac torching the surface of the sheet silver, watching it curl and de-form into a lovely surface texture, then sawed and assembled and accented and pin-back soldered into a rather lovely little object that always got nice complements.
Today, all I have is a less faded spot in the fabric and the dark tarnished holes left in my coat.
It's such a strange thing, losing a cherished object. On the one hand, I learned long ago, it's just stuff. The 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 drove that awareness home with significant force. On the other hand, I really did love that pin and I really never lose stuff, but I'm always one to look at things from different perspectives - Like why now or why that? As I lay in bed last night hoping for sleep to overtake my active brain, those questions and more swirled around in my head ... there were ideas for designing new pins and new pmc experiments to try and wondering if anyone had found my pin or if it got smushed by a snow plow somewhere or I wonder what would happen if I did this or that and boy I need to stop this and try to go to sleep and counting my blessings and going through all the things I'm grateful for and I wonder if I'll ever see my pin on someone else's coat and would I say anything if I did??? I'll just say that I did finally fall asleep, but it was a less than restful night.
I'm fascinated by what shifts within me when once-cherished belongings loose their spark ... and I'm equally intrigued by how cathartic it can be when choosing to part with those now lack lustre belongings ... shipping off my 20 year Ornament magazine collection to a reader of my blog and carting off an even bigger stack of American Craft magazines to the library's magazine exchange bin, oof, that was a really big step for me; finally trading in that book, a birthday present from an old flame from 35 years ago; or a beloved mug breaks, well I can glue it back together and use it on my worktable to hold pencils or tools. So the observer in me is very curious about how such a very small thing, loosing my pin, can have such an impact. I'm still mulling it over, but it's very curious indeed.
It was such a strange week. Kind of all over the place with ups and downs and sideways twists and turns.
Little Zoe had a $500 visit to the vet - oof! She's got calcified crystals in her bladder (or something like that) and is now on prescription cat food, but is doing much better. Large sigh of relief here. I've had some nightmare vet visits and one in particular I have yet to forgive myself for. Like my brother says, I've got to let that one go. I'm trying, really I am, but that doesn't make leaving little Zoe at the vet for a couple of hours any easier. As for the money, I honestly don't care how much it costs to make sure my little sweetie is okay, but that was a surprisingly big chunk.
My new cookware arrived and is wonderful and perfect, but turns out the same brand utensils that I ordered along with the cookware are not the recommended utensils. It would have been nice if I could have found that somewhere before ordering. No big deal, I'll just return them, but still.
I got some delicious additions to my library - sweet, fresh and juicy inspiration bound up in three lovely volumes ...
Ethnic Jewellery from Africa, Asia and Pacific Islands I used to check out from the library in Port Townsend and forgot how good it is. It's a good one!
Fashion Jewelry, Catwalk and Couture by Maia Adams is new to me, found while cruising around on Amazon. It's British, new last year and has several designers I'm familiar with, but lots more new ones with lots of excellent photos and pretty decent bios along with website links ... very juicy!
And the last one is a Taschen publication, Fashion, The Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, A History from the 18th to 20th Century that I found in the bargain section of Barnes and Noble. Boy howdy, it is LUSH!
So it really has been a roller coaster of a week, emotional and stressful and joyous and scary and disappointing and uplifting. I'll continue to mull over my lost pin and the why that, why now of it's departure. I'll look forward to perusing my new volumes of inspiration before getting back to work on orders and website updates. I'll look forward to getting a decent night's sleep and starting fresh tomorrow.
Letting go is a good thing, really.
blessings - kvk
Today, all I have is a less faded spot in the fabric and the dark tarnished holes left in my coat.
It's such a strange thing, losing a cherished object. On the one hand, I learned long ago, it's just stuff. The 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 drove that awareness home with significant force. On the other hand, I really did love that pin and I really never lose stuff, but I'm always one to look at things from different perspectives - Like why now or why that? As I lay in bed last night hoping for sleep to overtake my active brain, those questions and more swirled around in my head ... there were ideas for designing new pins and new pmc experiments to try and wondering if anyone had found my pin or if it got smushed by a snow plow somewhere or I wonder what would happen if I did this or that and boy I need to stop this and try to go to sleep and counting my blessings and going through all the things I'm grateful for and I wonder if I'll ever see my pin on someone else's coat and would I say anything if I did??? I'll just say that I did finally fall asleep, but it was a less than restful night.
I'm fascinated by what shifts within me when once-cherished belongings loose their spark ... and I'm equally intrigued by how cathartic it can be when choosing to part with those now lack lustre belongings ... shipping off my 20 year Ornament magazine collection to a reader of my blog and carting off an even bigger stack of American Craft magazines to the library's magazine exchange bin, oof, that was a really big step for me; finally trading in that book, a birthday present from an old flame from 35 years ago; or a beloved mug breaks, well I can glue it back together and use it on my worktable to hold pencils or tools. So the observer in me is very curious about how such a very small thing, loosing my pin, can have such an impact. I'm still mulling it over, but it's very curious indeed.
It was such a strange week. Kind of all over the place with ups and downs and sideways twists and turns.
Little Zoe had a $500 visit to the vet - oof! She's got calcified crystals in her bladder (or something like that) and is now on prescription cat food, but is doing much better. Large sigh of relief here. I've had some nightmare vet visits and one in particular I have yet to forgive myself for. Like my brother says, I've got to let that one go. I'm trying, really I am, but that doesn't make leaving little Zoe at the vet for a couple of hours any easier. As for the money, I honestly don't care how much it costs to make sure my little sweetie is okay, but that was a surprisingly big chunk.
My new cookware arrived and is wonderful and perfect, but turns out the same brand utensils that I ordered along with the cookware are not the recommended utensils. It would have been nice if I could have found that somewhere before ordering. No big deal, I'll just return them, but still.
I got some delicious additions to my library - sweet, fresh and juicy inspiration bound up in three lovely volumes ...
Fashion Jewelry, Catwalk and Couture by Maia Adams is new to me, found while cruising around on Amazon. It's British, new last year and has several designers I'm familiar with, but lots more new ones with lots of excellent photos and pretty decent bios along with website links ... very juicy!
And the last one is a Taschen publication, Fashion, The Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, A History from the 18th to 20th Century that I found in the bargain section of Barnes and Noble. Boy howdy, it is LUSH!
So it really has been a roller coaster of a week, emotional and stressful and joyous and scary and disappointing and uplifting. I'll continue to mull over my lost pin and the why that, why now of it's departure. I'll look forward to perusing my new volumes of inspiration before getting back to work on orders and website updates. I'll look forward to getting a decent night's sleep and starting fresh tomorrow.
Letting go is a good thing, really.
blessings - kvk
17 January 2011
"the Good News"
I got completely gnarled out last night watching the Golden Globe awards. I used to devour these awards shows; I loved the gowns and jewels and glamour. Last night was mean and surreal. No fun at all. I'm totally out of step with what seems to be the mainstream, normal mode of operation. And you know, I'm exceedingly relieved that I just don't get it.
Then I got to thinking ... Who's game for taking on a new project? Anybody out there interested in working on "The Good News" news program. No snarky, meanspirited nattering, no blown up bodies or crazed mass murderers, just good news. I know there must be a lot of really good things going on in the world, so how come we rarely hear about them in the mainstream media? We rarely watch network TV, but the last few times we've tuned in, we've run straight away. Mean and angry and so sad to realize this is what so many people want to watch. And they wonder why there's such a bullying problem in schools ...
So for something completely different, here's a new record company that is having it's big launch party this afternoon. Harmony Records. (this is their Facebook link) and a new video for MLK day ...
"The Good News" ... just an idea.
blessings - kvk
Then I got to thinking ... Who's game for taking on a new project? Anybody out there interested in working on "The Good News" news program. No snarky, meanspirited nattering, no blown up bodies or crazed mass murderers, just good news. I know there must be a lot of really good things going on in the world, so how come we rarely hear about them in the mainstream media? We rarely watch network TV, but the last few times we've tuned in, we've run straight away. Mean and angry and so sad to realize this is what so many people want to watch. And they wonder why there's such a bullying problem in schools ...
So for something completely different, here's a new record company that is having it's big launch party this afternoon. Harmony Records. (this is their Facebook link) and a new video for MLK day ...
"The Good News" ... just an idea.
blessings - kvk
16 January 2011
oh yes, me very happy
Oh yes, yes, yes! Me very happy indeed!
My latest experiment ... the KVK version of channel setting raw gems. In this case rough Tunduru sapphires (a mix of andalusite, hessonite, sapphire and garnet) set in a nice size really raw nugget, 34mm x 18mm.
Especially love this view ...
I haven't decided which way I want to go with the pendant. I've got several ideas brewing and the possibilites are seeming pretty much endless. We shall see...
Once I got going on this idea, I headed back to Ebay and did a bit more shopping. I really do try to stay in the US when I'm buying stuff, but I just couldn't resist these deals ... a 50 carat lot of rough Songea sapphires from Tanzania ($5.50) and 3 ginormous rough gemstone lots, one that's 350 carats of mixed sapphires ($11), nice and clean and slightly tumbled, one 500 carat lot of dark blue sapphires ($12) and one 500 carat lot of rubies ($15). International shipping is a pretty good deal, usually $8 - $10. Basically, they're all small stones, 2 - 4mm and look like gemstone gravel - perfect for setting in pmc. I don't have any where near that many Tunduru sapphires, which is a shame since the colors are so gorgeous, but I'll be on the lookout for sure.
I'm also very happy because the replacement earrings and components turned out just perfect and will get shipped off on Tuesday. Always a relief to have repairs done and out the door.
And the third happy thing ... our families were really generous with Amazon gift certificates this year and I just ordered a new set of cookware. My current set of RevereWare was a wedding present, that would be July 1980. Needless to say, these pots and pans have served me extremely well, but I can't wait for my new ones!
Oh yes, me very very happy!
Hope you're happy too ...
happy blessings - kvk
13 January 2011
the root of it
Winding down for now.
The afternoon's been a satisfying mix of physical labor - there's now a path up our driveway, journal writing and book thumbing, tea drinking, a decadent lunch of a white sweet potato with a bit of butter and some spiced walnuts left over from Christmas, followed by a luxurious shower and slathering on of some new deliciously fragrant body lotion.
Coming back to my writing/meditation nook, I once again picked up Oneness. I pulled it out last night; reading sections before bed usually helps me sleep. Here's the highlighted section I landed on last night and which I've come back to this afternoon.
This is, I am most certain, the most challenging thing for me to move through and where I have invariably sabotaged myself. I am a master at trying to mastermind. I really would like to stop.
Wish me luck.
blessings - kvk
The afternoon's been a satisfying mix of physical labor - there's now a path up our driveway, journal writing and book thumbing, tea drinking, a decadent lunch of a white sweet potato with a bit of butter and some spiced walnuts left over from Christmas, followed by a luxurious shower and slathering on of some new deliciously fragrant body lotion.
Coming back to my writing/meditation nook, I once again picked up Oneness. I pulled it out last night; reading sections before bed usually helps me sleep. Here's the highlighted section I landed on last night and which I've come back to this afternoon.
This is, I am most certain, the most challenging thing for me to move through and where I have invariably sabotaged myself. I am a master at trying to mastermind. I really would like to stop.
Wish me luck.
blessings - kvk
disarray + wish I knew then ...
I really do wish I knew then what I know now ...
One of the less wonderful sides of making jewelry for a living is acknowledging that not all my designs are foolproof and that repairs are a fact of life.
At the time it seemed like such an excellent idea and in some cases, it still is - firing sterling chain into PMC3 - well, mainly because I could and it looked very cool. What I know now is that all chains are not created equal and some are better suited to the task.
Case in point - foxtail. Perusing the Rio Grande catalog, it looked like just the ticket. What I found out, too late, was that it breaks. And isn't that just a large bummer? Pieces had been sold and gone out into the world, my fingers were crossed hoping the new owners would be gentle with their new earrings.
Thankfully, it seems they've held up rather well as I just recently received the first pieces for repair - I know it's at least 3 years later, maybe 4.
The trick with pmc and repairs is accurate replication - between my very inexact way of working and the shrinkage factor, it's always a challenge. With these, I had to make some changes, mainly switching to a sterling snake chain and adding pmc bails at the top of one of the dangles. They're almost finished, actually the replacement pieces are in the tumbler waiting for me to reassemble them and ship them off. Here's pre-tumbler:
Which leads me to the next thing. I spent most of yesterday, while pieces were tumbling, trying to get back to work. With my pmc tools still strewn about, I started hauling out my bins of components. I sat there trying different combinations over and over and over and ... well, let me just say nothing was flowing. Inspiration was painfully absent. I finally gave up and resorted to surfing the internet ... mindless zoning out. This morning, I came back to my table and the disarray and, with the added advice from my horoscope:
I've decided to leave it be, at least for today. So far I've extracted one vehicle encrusted in 8" of snow and sent Dave back to work. Cleaning up the breakfast dishes then lead to a thorough cleaning of my beloved English tea kettle. Years ago, when my kettle was sparkling and new (at the time an enormous splurge), I had a British friend comment on it being a "proper kettle" ... that it is. It's still a bit crusty, but it's back to being shiny.
After this, I will shut down the computer and spend the rest of the day just following my nose, see where my gaze lands. I'm thinking some more shoveling, clearing off the other vehicle, I'd like to do a bit of writing in my journal, maybe peruse some books from my library and drink lots of tea with water heated in my sparklie proper kettle.
One more thing before I leave. I've never been one to read poetry. I love listening to poetry readings, but sitting down and reading always seemed such a strange activity. I've never understood how you could read one poem after another. It seems like one poem should be read and then time allowed to savor and reflect before moving on. I don't know, maybe that's what most people do, just not me. What I really do love is watching films about writers and poets, listening to the cadence, the vocabulary, watching the hand gestures and body language. One such film was a Christmas present for the house - the film is The Practice of the Wild, which comes with the book The Etiquette of Freedom. It's mostly a conversation between Gary Snyder (Dave's favorite poet) and Jim Harrison. It's absolutely wonderful. We watched it twice the first night along with all the DVD extras, which are equally terrific and again last night. Here's the trailer ...
Also, I'm now a big fan of Jim Harrison. He's an absolute delight in the film and I think the description I read of him being "a force of nature" is dead on.
So until next time and with deep gratitude, I send warm blessings - kvk
p.s. I did take a bunch of pictures of all the snow, but figured everyone's got lots of pictures of the snow and there wasn't much I could add that was different or interesting. But there is this one ... looks like jewelry inspiration to me ...
One of the less wonderful sides of making jewelry for a living is acknowledging that not all my designs are foolproof and that repairs are a fact of life.
Thankfully, it seems they've held up rather well as I just recently received the first pieces for repair - I know it's at least 3 years later, maybe 4.
The trick with pmc and repairs is accurate replication - between my very inexact way of working and the shrinkage factor, it's always a challenge. With these, I had to make some changes, mainly switching to a sterling snake chain and adding pmc bails at the top of one of the dangles. They're almost finished, actually the replacement pieces are in the tumbler waiting for me to reassemble them and ship them off. Here's pre-tumbler:
Which leads me to the next thing. I spent most of yesterday, while pieces were tumbling, trying to get back to work. With my pmc tools still strewn about, I started hauling out my bins of components. I sat there trying different combinations over and over and over and ... well, let me just say nothing was flowing. Inspiration was painfully absent. I finally gave up and resorted to surfing the internet ... mindless zoning out. This morning, I came back to my table and the disarray and, with the added advice from my horoscope:
Your natural psychic abilities may be short-circuited today, dear Sagittarius. ... Your imaginative faculties could be rather garbled as well. The best possible advice: take the day for yourself ... You can go back to your routine tomorrow.
I've decided to leave it be, at least for today. So far I've extracted one vehicle encrusted in 8" of snow and sent Dave back to work. Cleaning up the breakfast dishes then lead to a thorough cleaning of my beloved English tea kettle. Years ago, when my kettle was sparkling and new (at the time an enormous splurge), I had a British friend comment on it being a "proper kettle" ... that it is. It's still a bit crusty, but it's back to being shiny.
After this, I will shut down the computer and spend the rest of the day just following my nose, see where my gaze lands. I'm thinking some more shoveling, clearing off the other vehicle, I'd like to do a bit of writing in my journal, maybe peruse some books from my library and drink lots of tea with water heated in my sparklie proper kettle.
One more thing before I leave. I've never been one to read poetry. I love listening to poetry readings, but sitting down and reading always seemed such a strange activity. I've never understood how you could read one poem after another. It seems like one poem should be read and then time allowed to savor and reflect before moving on. I don't know, maybe that's what most people do, just not me. What I really do love is watching films about writers and poets, listening to the cadence, the vocabulary, watching the hand gestures and body language. One such film was a Christmas present for the house - the film is The Practice of the Wild, which comes with the book The Etiquette of Freedom. It's mostly a conversation between Gary Snyder (Dave's favorite poet) and Jim Harrison. It's absolutely wonderful. We watched it twice the first night along with all the DVD extras, which are equally terrific and again last night. Here's the trailer ...
Also, I'm now a big fan of Jim Harrison. He's an absolute delight in the film and I think the description I read of him being "a force of nature" is dead on.
So until next time and with deep gratitude, I send warm blessings - kvk
p.s. I did take a bunch of pictures of all the snow, but figured everyone's got lots of pictures of the snow and there wasn't much I could add that was different or interesting. But there is this one ... looks like jewelry inspiration to me ...
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