settings

we've had a busy week, it seems.

it began on saturday with kate's surprise party! she turned 40, and we all went up to barley's saturday afternoon for the party. and she had no clue it was coming! it was super fun! here is a pic of kate opening presents. woo hoo!

the other night jamie found this happening in the living room. we were very touched. trudy in the past has had great difficulty with cats, as she wants to chase them. things are working out well between her and steve now, and we are very pleased.

i am really excited about these new rings. i love making these little settings, and these tiny rings have a lot of character. they are like little treasures. i am really excited to go to the gem show in tucson on monday so i can find more little things to put in these settings.



another person i always look forward to seeing at the craft shows is lee marracinni.
lee is one of the most genuine people, and it is nice to give him a hug! he is a snappy dresser, always wearing some stylish suit. his jewelry is fabulous...classic with interesting components. check out his inlay work as well here.



tomorrow i am off to tucson. i will be teaching marriage of metal to 14 students! we are going to have a good time, as this is a very satisfying technique. it will be interesting to check out tucson a little bit, as i have never been there. i hope it is warm.

well, fermelenge!

om shanti om

i have been listening to and loving the soundtrack to the bollywood hit movie "om shanti om." last night i found the myspace page for the movie and found the detailed plot description very funny.

in the film the main role is played by Om Prakash Makhija (Shahrukh Khan), a junior artist in the film industry set in the 1970's and his sidekick friend Pappu (Shreyas Talpade) who are trying to become a big hero one day. Om’s mother, Bela Makhija (Kirron Kher) who is seen inspiring and encouraging their son to become a hero. Om is seen here as a happy go lucky kind of guy and they talked with each other in a filmy way. Om’s love interest is Shantipriya (Deepika Padukone), a rising star. During the premire of a film, the pallu of Shanti’s shari got entrangled with Om’s hand; he managed to enter the hall duping the guards. One day during the shooting of film, the set caught fire in an uncontrolled manner, Shanti was trapped inside the film, it was Om who rescued her, hurting himself. After the incident, Shanti came to thank him personally, and incidentally she overheard Om’s love for her.

click here to read more, as this is only the 1st paragraph! i think my favorite is the word "entrangled". and i am wondering how she overheard his love.

now, here is our boat! nice!



in the dog world, trudy has been eating the cat shit out of the litter box again. earlier she walked in the living room with it all stuck to her nose. i love it when she does that!

these are some rings made by my friend todd reed. he is reclaiming stones from old mughal indian jewelry, having them re-cut, and setting them in these fabulous baubles. he often uses raw diamond cubes set in 18-22k gold or sterling. this is what he is known for, and he pretty much single handedly started this trend of using raw diamond cubes. todd is a friend i am always happy to see at the shows...and i'll be seeing him in a few weeks in both philadelphia and baltimore. in the next few weeks, i'll be posting pics of other friends i'll be seeing at these shows as well...

fermelenge!

check it!

thanks to everyone who gave me their advice on the pics. the real ones won!

i sent off some models to the caster a few weeks ago. i have been making these oval pieces, you may have seen them. they are so labor intensive when i make each individual oval and solder them all together and also it is limiting in what i can do when there are all those solder seams. so i had some pieces cast in silver, kind of like in sheet form. it makes it WAY easier to make the balls, which are my favorite! still...i am super happy to be able to make more complicated designs with the cast pieces. these are my 1st two! I LOVE THEM!

sterling silver, citrine


sterling silver, 18k gold, red glass, diamond

i also think these pics are pretty darn good, if i may say so.

i am super tired after staying up late with my friend kristen last night. i like to get 8 full hours or else i am "RUNT". for the next few days we are just gonna take it easy.

my ad came out in American Craft Magazine. it looks ok, but i am not thrilled. the photo was not so good, and for $1300 i need to do better next time.



i got a phone call from my friend suzanne pugh the other day. she teaches jewelry and metalsmithing at the City College of San Francisco. i 1st met suzanne up at Penland when she was in charge of the metals studio. suzanne is a real special person and quite a piece of work! anyway, she asked if i would come teach a weekend workshop out there in april! hell yes! so jamie and i are going out there for a few days in the beginning of april. i will teach a class on creative stone setting. woo hoo! california, prophet on the burning shore! like an angel, standing in a shaft of light! here is a belt buckle made by ms. pugh. she chases these with hand tools and a hammer for the texture, and adds in lyrics, often from old country songs, that have relevance to the wearer. bad ass.





this is a kick ass flask of hank williams.



we got a new boat!! i'll take a pic tomorrow and post it for you then! we are excited. camping season is too far away! jamie did a great job of picking it out, from an old preacher out on rt.9. it is an oldie but a goodie, kind of like a fiberglass extra-wide john boat. it can fit 2 dogs, 2 people, a bunch of firewood and coolers and my sleeping foam mat. yee-haw!

fermelenge

photoshop

can we have a vote? if you are so inclined, let me know which set of pics you prefer. and why...

set one
set 2

i have learned a lot about Photoshop this weekend, but my eyes are tired and can no longer see the truth. now, i need your opinions.

thanks!

(sukriya)
शुक्रिया

khana aur maza OR food and fun

jamie made some excellent indian food the other night. he cooked up some curry chicken in the crock pot, it simmered and smelled delicious all day long. then in the evening he made up some puris, which is indian flat bread that puffs up when deep fried. they turned out perfectly!

i made my 1st cheesecake. i made it with ricotta cheese, and next time i will try the cream cheese recipe. i was pretty happy with the results, esp the graham cracker crust with real milk chocolate chips! this is not exactly the hobby i need to start as it will end up making me fatter than my plump self already is!

this is a new ring i just finished on wednesday. i found the plastic diamond at michael's, but i cut it up some and filed it all down to look the way i wanted. it is set in oxidized sterling silver. love it!

jamie and i watched a travel show the other day about rajastan, india. it was super fun to watch, as i had been to 2 out of 3 places they showed! jamie said it made him excited to go to india sometime. so here i post a pic of fri afternoon traffic in old delhi as a temptation. oh, the lovely craziness!

lark books is doing a book on fiber jewelry. this means any jewelry made out of cloth or yarn or anything fibrous. i have written many how-to projects for Lark Books in the past, and i am going to try to do a project for this new book as well. i am making a necklace out of a fulled sweater. fulling occurs when you machine wash a woolen sweater and it shrinks up and felts. i am excited about this project and it has been perfect for a saturday afternoon with the snow lightly falling outside.

have you ever noticed while eating a bowl of pistachios that the last ones in the bowl are the ones that won't open? how does this happen? it is like murphy's law or something.

have a great weekend!
fermelenge!

mindless

well, my thoughts turn today, along with many others', to britters. this woman fascinates me. i know lots of people hate to hear about this and complain about it, but for now i am more interested in this than in Hillary crying or obama's feigning a snub of MLK.

just check out these pics.


we begin with our virginal britney. aw, i am so touched looking at her!


just a pic i like, it shows how much photoshopping really goes on. but also how she just doesn't take care of herself. (you can always click on these to blow them up.)


and how can you just not love this one? very revealing.

britters used to have it going on. rumors are that she has a mental illness, and frankly i am believing it. plus the poor girl is under so much scrutiny, how can she not at least be having a good old fashioned mental breakdown?

what i am hoping (thought it is unlikely) is that something will happen and the media will use this as an excuse to educate the public about mental illness. i hope they can turn her into another different kind of success story. but as they say...if wishes were horse. or, i mean, when pigs can fly...

sleep tight.

not much

not much going on here. we have had a chill weekend at the house. been on the computer alot and have ignored my sweater crafts.

went out friday night to barley's and broadway's. heard that the old car dealership on merrimon has been bought to make two 10 story buildings....and guess what will be in them? condos! can't wait for such a neat thing to move on in our burg! we had fun being out though, and even saw some people we know!

i am interested in this car. a smart car. the only thing is that the gas milage is not all that great. i really want some kind of car that runs on renewable energy. do you think that i will be able to get a good one 5 years from now? that is when i think my Honda might die.


i bought some new trade show carpet. it comes in blocks you can fit together. pretty cool. i am hoping to have a bad ass booth at my trade shows that are coming up. the buyer's market of american craft is in philly feb 14-21 and the acc baltimore show runs feb 22-28. i hope the red looks classy yet funky without being overwhelming.



jamie and i made some delicious chili tonight for dinner using deer meat that our friend gave us. we cooked it all day in the crock pot and it did not taste gamey at all. yum! jamie likes it with oyster crackers, but i prefer to have some chips to scoop with. but as we have no chips, i enjoyed the oyster crackers, as well.

i received 2 books from Lark Books on friday, both of which have my work in them. 500 Wedding Rings was super fun to look through and will be a great reference. Modern Jewelry from Modular Parts was fun because my piece is on the cover! also fun because i know most of the contributors and i liked seeing us all work together in the same book. 2 of the jewelers are right in my studio, amy tavern and molly dingledine! awesome!


i am getting over my cold but have had some severe headaches due i think to sinus pressure. awful! the walk with jamie & the ladies (trudy and sadie) did make me feel really good this afternoon though, after the rain.

have a good one!

updating

i have been busy again on the computer. most recently i have created my Etsy account! yay! you can see the mini version to the left of this blog, click on the "chandi" and it will take you to the real thing. "Chandi" means silver in hindi. are you surprised that is what i picked for my store name?

we went friday night to the cd release party for tyler ramsey. it was packed! he played great, the music was excellent, and everyone was super happy for him. tyler is an awesome guy, a fabulous musician, and he deserves to have tons of recognition. check him out and buy his new cd!

i am happy that now i can post these pics of things i made for people for christmas. i embroidered the pillow cases for the ladies in the family. i didn't get a pic of the ones i made for grandma, though.



i also had fun printing out images onto cloth on the laser printer and sewing them together in these little pictures. they turned out so delicate and sweet, i was very pleased with them.



i also am updating my website with some wedding ring photos. they will be on the "various" page if you guys want to see some of the fancier work i have done with gold and diamonds. love me some diamonds!

i am a little under the weather with a cold. my throat was hurting until i took some oregano oil last night and that kicked it. i swear by that stuff for sore throats, but jamie swears that after he took some of that years ago he developed acid reflux. now my problem is the congestion in my head and it is making my neck hurt and i feel generally crappy.

hope everyone else is feeling better than i am!

learning and sharing

happy new year, people! best wishes to all for a delightful, fruitful, enjoyable year.


i don't know who these people are, but i thought this was pretty funny and appropriate!

i was looking through ETSY today and came upon a jewelry maker who obviously has my book. it was fascinating to me to see! when i wrote these books and designed the projects, i tried to stress that these projects were examples, that the "students" should take these ideas and then make them their own.

but here i found a pair of earrings that were a project in my book, Making Metal Jewelry, and the jewelry maker on ETSY has re-done them and has them up for sale. that is fine, but disappointing. (my photos aren't so hot, because i took them of the book pages!)

mine


hers
now, on the ring i was happy to see she changed up the rivet a little bit and kinda did her own thing.

mine



hers

also on the screen trapped objects. she did a good job of making this her own.

mine
hers



it was just so interesting to know that my book is influencing someone like this! amazing! cool to run across as well.

that's about it for today.
fermelenge