Pierced!!

Well, it's been a while since I posted, and have I been busy!!! My first jewelry teaching gig is behind me, and the next is coming up fast. I am so lucky to have found Meredith and Cherie, at The Garden of Beadin', our local bead shop (if you're in the Poconos, that is). They are warm and friendly, just great to work with. Cherie's lovely little shop is a perfect place to take classes in jewelry making. My classes in cold connections for jewelry have been warmly recieved. I can tell I'm going to like it here. Our first class, held Jan 10, was a piercing class. It covered the basics of using a jeweler's saw, and piercing a pattern into metal by drilling a hole inside the pattern. Students learned how to thread and hold a jeweler's saw, how follow a pattern, and how to use a light touch. I am so proud of them! Conversations, questions, and amazingly few broken saw blades, an incredible feat for a first experience. I was very impressed as dragonflies, trees, wolves, and more emerged from under their saws. Everyone walked away with a copper or silver pendant to be proud of.

Our next class will be held on Feb 7, and I will be teaching basic forging while we make bracelets and neck rings to hang our pendants from. I really enjoyed teaching the class. It's quite a different experience from being a student, and I can't wait for the next class. I have posted a few of the pieces that I made as class samples. Before class, I readied another pendant that had a scattering of viney leaves on it. I pounded it with a rawhide hammer to help harden the silver when it was complete. Well, my wonky, misshappen hammer hit that piece at some weird angle, shot it off the workbench, and I haven't seen it since. Oh well, some day in the future a beautiful, dusty, viney disc will appear from out of the sawdust, and I'll be back in business, ready for a new groupof students!