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Since I am in the middle of a couple of projects and not really able to blog them yet, I thought it was time for something a little different.

I grew up in the 80s, when the Cold War was in full force and  threat of nuclear war was constantly waved over our heads, much like the threat of terrorism is now.  From a very young age, I understood that war was wrong, and I really couldn’t grasp the concept of a “just” or “necessary” war.  I still can’t.

I wrote the following poem when I was a kid, right about the age I was in this picture (13):

One War

One boy in a crowd of soldiers
Making his dream come true
Fighting for his country;
The glorious red, white, and blue.

He points his gun and fires,
Killing another man.
He proudly turns to his comrade,
But he doesn’t understand.

One man in a crowd of soldiers,
Family and friends left behind.
A wife and a little baby–
Will he make it out alive?

Tears of bitter sorrow
As he watches another fall
All this fighting and killing
Oh, how he despises it all!

One child looks at a picture
Of a father he’ll never know.
This faded memory is all that’s left
Of a life finished long ago.

Pictures tell a lot of things,
But they can’t say “I love you.”
War is a bitter game to play;
There’s nothing quite so cruel.

Will we ever find an answer
Without going through this pain?
A war brings only sorrow–
There’s nothing at all to be gained.

One dark day we’ll realize
But by then it’ll be too late.
War can never solve problems
Of anger and of hate. 

And above all, stands the victor,
Proud, and brave, and tall.
But what have we really conquered?
The winner takes nothing at all.

–Holly Ann O’Neill

The original poem had a few of extra stanzas but I’ve since taken them out because they refer to God.  It’s not that I object to them as part of the poem necessarily, it’s just that they don’t jive with my beliefs now.  Here they are, if you’re interested:

One man sets his gun down,
Another stops a grenade.
The other men stop fighting;
They all join hands to pray:

“God in Heaven, hear our cry–
Let this fighting cease.
Let love and joy fill all the world,
Let all men live in peace.”

To be sure, this poem is simplistic and represents a child’s view of war.  However, I still believe the fundamental message to be true–now more than ever.

No, this isn’t a post about skincare cream.  I’m feeling very passionate about jewelry today.  Must have something to do with this post.

Anyway, I spent the day finishing some pieces I’d started in the studio on Tuesday:

The earrings pictured above are fabricated in sterling silver and feature wire-wrapped apatite beads.  The actual beads are more turquoise in real life, but I like how this photo makes them look so blue, almost like sapphires.

For the necklace above, I simply strung the pendant on a 16" length of faux suede.  I like faux suede for necklaces better than real suede or leather, but I’m not sure why.  Actually, I do know why:  it’s softer and more comfortable to wear.

I also did some replacement/repair work today:

These earrings were originally made in 2004 and purchased by my friend Theresa.  Girlfriend proceeded to lose one and asked me to make a replacement at least a year ago.  Today I finally did it.  The earrings are made from 14k gold-filled wire and components, and the beads are Swarovski crystals.

Poor Theresa, she seems to have bad luck with my jewelry.  She bought the necklace pictured above as a birthday gift for a friend a couple of years ago.  The necklace broke somehow (look, it was after at least a year of lots of wearing, I swear) and so she asked me to repair it.  After only a few months, I finally got it done.  The necklace is made of 14k gold-filled wire and chain and features a peach-colored cubic zirconia pendant.

I’ve been making my own clasps lately and I really like the look they give to otherwise generic-looking chain.  The process of fabricating one is extremely simple, so I thought I’d post a little tutorial on it.

Tools & Materials:
18g sterling silver round wire
Metal shears
Soldering torch
Solder
Soldering block
Flux
Pickle
Cross lock tweezers
Tweezers
Round nose pliers
Rolling mill or hammer & metal block
File
Emery paper
Method of polishing

Making the clasp

1)  Snip about 2 inches of wire using your metal shears.

2)  Holding the wire with your cross lock tweezers, dip one end of the wire in flux.

3)  Use your torch to melt a small ball on the end of the wire with the flux.

4)  Hold the wire with your round nose pliers (close to the narrowest part of the pliers) right above the ball you’ve made.  Curve the end of the wire so that the ball rests against the wire.

5)  Holding the wire at the top of the small curve you’ve just made, curve the wire around the widest part of your pliers.

6)  Use the rolling mill to flatten the largest curve of your clasp.  This will add strength to your clasp, as well as being a nice design element.

It will look like this:

Note:  If you don’t have access to a rolling mill, you can complete this step by hammering the curve on a metal block.  Marks left by the hammer can be smoothed with emery paper.

7)  Trim the tail of the wire to your desired length.  Using the narrowest part of the round nose pliers, curve a small bit of the tail outward and file it flat.

8)  Lay a small bit of solder between your ball and the clasp and brush with flux.

9)  Solder these ends together and put the clasp in pickle.

10)  Smooth all rough edges with emery paper or an emery stick.

11)  Polish your clasp using your method of choice.

You now have a pretty little clasp!  Add one jump ring to the looped end and attach it to your chain.  Add a second jump ring to the other end of your chain and you’ll have your “eye” for the hook to go through.

My attention span is seriously small.  I’ve been talking about getting my jewelry business back on track and I even have a long list of things that need to be accomplished in this vein.

But all I want to do is knit.

Ever since I bought this yarn I’ve been obsessed with knitting up this cardy-of-my-own-design.  The yarn knits up pretty quickly, but even so, I’ve spent many hours since last Tuesday knitting this sweater.  Hours that I technically should’ve been using to take care of my list of “business priorities.”

What’s really funny is that despite my obsession with this particular knit project, I’ve got another one on the the needles (also of my own design) that I suddenly decided I want to try to finish up so I can submit the design to Knitty for it’s Winter issue (deadline September 15).  I spent the weekend feverishly calculating the pattern and knitting while watching the Mary Tyler Moore show on DVD.

Here’s where having a lot of free time and no one to “answer to” bites me in the hiney.  If I had a boss, or investors (besides Mick) or even regular customers, my priorities would be laid out for me.  Since I have none of these things, I have to be disciplined enough to set my own priorities.  Discipline isn’t one of my strong suits.

Mind you, I’m not complaining.  I love my life.  But like most people, my psyche requires that I have goals and projects to keep me feeling fulfilled as a person.  Also like most people, I am easily distracted and often go from one project to another without finishing the first.  I suppose that’s fine since I’m always really busy, but when the day is done and I find myself accomplishing what appears to be nothing, it kind of bums me out.

All of this said, if I can complete the design for Knitty and actually get it submitted, I will consider it a major goal accomplished.  When I started this blog at the beginning of 2007, that was one of the things I wanted to do–start designing knit patterns and getting them published.  So even though I haven’t been doing what I said I wanted to do with my jewelry business, I’m not beating myself up too much about it because this other goal is also important to me.  If it gives me an excuse to sit around watching the Mary Tyler Moore show all day, so much the better.

Accident is probably too strong a word for what I’m talking about.  Experiment is probably better.

I have a pair of earrings that have recently made me want to try filigree, or at least something filigree-esque:

True filigree, of course, is a very complicated and painstaking process which takes lots of practice to do well.  The pattern in the earrings pictured above, however, looks relatively simple so I thought I’d give it a try.

I began by forming a simple circle in 18g sterling silver wire.  Then I started snipping smaller pieces of the wire with my shears with the intent of curling them into various shapes and soldering them in place within my circular frame.  Here’s where things went haywire and I lost interest.  I think my wire was too thick and since I didn’t really measure anything, they were too big and slightly unwieldy.   I decided instead to just make a simple circular pendant instead.

I soldered a jump ring in the center to hold a stone and on the top as a bail.  Boring, but functional.  The happy accident came when I put the bottom half of the pendant through the mill–it flattened it and changed the shape of the circle into a petal (dare I say lotus) shape that is quite appealing.

I’m going to play around with sizes and stones on this pendant.  Even though I used a peridot in this example, I’m not 100% satisfied with it.  I’ll also make one with no stone at all, or add a tear drop of 18k gold instead of a stone.  Lots of options!

All right, I’ll admit that’s one of my lamer post titles, but I couldn’t resist.

A couple of things:  Over the weekend I purchased Sweater Wizard.  Fun stuff!  However, until I actually knit a sweater from one of their patterns, I cannot say whether or not you should purchase it.  I’m optimistic though!

I’ve been trying really hard to resist buying more yarn, at least until I use up some of the yarn I already have.  Unfortunately, the other day I happened upon a yarn store I’d never been to before and, well, I caved.

I purchased 8 skeins of Himalayas Queensland Collection 100% wool, thinking it would make a delicious sweater for moi.

Never mind the blur… isn’t it purty?

Using the Sweater Wizard, I designed a raglan cardigan with a hood and bell sleeves.  I’m knitting it in the round, which I’ve never done with a cardigan before (or a sweater, for that matter).  One of the biggest complaints with sweaters I’ve knit in the past is that set in sleeves make me look too boxy.  I’m thinking the raglan sleeves will be better for my figure, but having never knit a garment with them before, I won’t know for sure until it’s complete.

 
Right now I’ve got about four projects on the needles, but this one is taking up all of my attention for the moment.  Since this yarn knits up relatively fast, I’m hoping to be finished within a couple of weeks.

U-Handbag writes a very good post about putting a price on your work:

Pricing Your Bags or other Crafts to Sell

This has always been a big topic in my jewelry studio.  My teacher says to triple the price of materials and that’s your wholesale price.  In the past I have doubled the price of materials, added an hourly wage for myself, and added a fixed amount to cover packaging and other expenses.  Sometimes I only add up the price of materials and add an hourly wage for my wholesale price, then I double it for my retail price.  And sometimes, I admit, I’ll just wave the magic wand in my head and come up with a price that really has nothing to do with anything, except maybe emotions.  I guess the question then becomes “How much does someone have to pay to get me to part with this precious baby?”

Yes, it’s all very scientific, this thing called pricing.

 
Earrings:  champagne diamond briolettes, wire-wrapped in 14k yellow gold.

Even the women in my jewelry studio who do much more selling than I do seem to be stumped when it comes to pricing.  For example, I recently asked one of them how much she was charging for a particular piece (it was a custom order for an acquaintance) and she quoted one price.  When I said I might be interested in having her make one for me, she said she’d charge me a different (lower) amount.  So in this scenario, we have wholesale pricing, retail pricing, acquaintance pricing, and friend pricing.

I suppose with all of this housecleaning I’ve been doing, I’m going to have to figure out a pricing system and stick to it, because frankly, that little magic wand in my head is getting a bit worse for wear.

Bracelet:  raw diamond beads wire-wrapped in 14k yellow gold.

About once a year, I find the need to “re-vamp” my jewelry business in one way or another.  Sometimes it’s a complete overhaul, other times it’s just a change in my line(s).  This time it’s not only an overhaul, it’s a complete tear-down and re-build!

I began by starting a business plan.  If you’ve ever written one before, you know it’s beyond tedious.  I think I spent about fifteen minutes on it before I decided maybe I should just write up a list of business priorities.  Much simpler.  Number one on my list?  Organize my finances!

When I started looking through all my receipts and paperwork, I was surprised to see that I haven’t prepared my California sales taxes for over two years.  I knew I was behind, but not that bad.  So I painfully went through each receipt, calculated my sales, and figured out what I owe for 2005.  Today I plow through 2006.

As it turned out, going through my receipts from 2005 was actually kind of a walk through memory lane.  Take these bangles, for example:

 
I sold these bracelets on eBay, and the woman who bought them ended up being a repeat customer.  In fact, we collaborated on a pair of custom earrings.

The earrings below are still in my own collection.  I include them here because they were made during the same time period and they are kind of different from my current style:

 
The necklace below is one of my all time favorites.  It is a hand-fabricated sterling pendant on sterling silver chain.  I don’t remember who bought it, but I hope they are still enjoying it.

 
One thing that struck me while I was “cleaning house” is how many sales I had in 2005.  Far more than I had in 2006 and 2007.  That’s my own fault, of course.  I’d like to get my business re-vamped in time for Christmas sales, and I have a time-line for that to happen, but I’m easily distracted.  I suppose I should just get these taxes finished and go from there!

I finally finished the socks I was making with this yarn.

 
As I said in my previous post, I used this pattern.

I really love making socks.  The only downside is that you have to make two, which sometimes feels tedious.

That said, as soon as I finish this post, I’m going to start on another pair!

Earlier in the week I mentioned a Swap-Bot project I was working on which featured a knitted serpent.  What could it possibly be, you might ask?  Well, it’s finished and ready for it’s unveiling:

Perhaps I should’ve warned you.  The purpose of this swap was to make a voodoo doll, which explains the curious, somewhat creepy, picture above.

I love voodoo dolls, so when I read this swap I knew I had to sign up.  But what kind of doll to make?  I wanted to be creative.

I really don’t consider myself a feminist, but I’ve always kind of bristled at the Christian concept of sin and how Woman brought it to Man and as a result she is Cursed.  I don’t know, it just seems a little outrageous to me.  I think Eve has gotten a pretty bad rap, and I’m sure she thinks so as well.  I figured she wouldn’t mind having a voodoo doll to incur a little of the wrath of God(dess) on her partner.

Thus, this Voodoo Man was born.

He comes complete with a serpent, apple, fig leaf and pin.  The always mischievous Eve can inflict him with the pain of childbirth, leg waxing, and cramps, or, if she so desires, the discomfort of thong panties:

I absolutely love the concept of this doll, if not the execution.  I made a few mistakes along the way, but this is a great prototype.  I want to make more of these in the future, but will have to experiment with materials, faces, etc.

Swap-Bot is fun!