Rings and running in circles

Ack, I wish I could blame Hurricane Sandy and a power outage for my lack of posting. She's partly responsible, in that she delayed my return from Texas by two days last week.

Amazingly, we had no loss of power. (I say "amazingly" because every piddly thunderstorm seems to knock out power in our leafy suburb. Above-ground power lines and mature trees are a bad combo.)

But my graduate class is in full throttle (paper due tomorrow) and the Alexandria Film Festival needs some of my attention. Plus I have a craft show coming up in two weeks. Oh, and I decided to throw an Election Watch party. So let's just say posting will be erratic for a little while longer and I'll get back to my I Might Make That! Mondays and Need a Laugh Wednesdays when things calm a bit.

The pic shows off my handiwork at Lexi Erickson's class in metalsmithing at Beadfest Texas. Most of the students were way more experienced than I was. But still it was a great intro, and I got to use a jeweler's saw for the first time, and learned proper hammering, filing and finishing techniques. The real biggie was that I got to use an acetylene torch in my first attempts at soldering.

In addition to making the three sterling silver stacking rings shown here, we made copper triangles cut from copper sheet metal that were supposed to be turned into earrings. My triangles were a little lopsided (but full of character), so I plan on using them to make a focal at a future point.