Fall is here

Fall has definatly come to Wisconsin....been in the lower 40's here at night and mid 60's during the day. I have been busy canning tomatoes from my garden and have a pot of chili cooking on the stove right now...took forever to cook my tomatoes down....next year I will have to plant meatier tomatoes.

I am still working on beads and improving all the time....I have been playing with reactive glass and still working on twist canes and different shapes.

Here are the results from a full day at the torch....I see bracelets galore!!

Another Day

Not much new here. I have continued to work on "The year of learning" And have been working mostly on making torch beads and am starting to get some decent control when applying stringer ( dots and such ). I am getting better at different shapes, and pulling stringer......although making twist canes is still a long way off.

I'm waiting on an order of sheet metal and some new blades so I can continue practicing sawing and cold connection ..especially tube rivets. I did learn a nice little trick using a draw plate to start the rivets on. Just cut your tube or wire slightly longer than the the width of the draw plate, place it in the plate and hammer one end....it gives it something to hold and does away with all that tap and flip. Insert rivet into the piece and trim leaving enough for another rivet and tap tap tap......done!

Here is a picture of a new design to share ( this piece can be seen in person at "Art and Soul Gallery" in Wauwatosa). I came up with a mock tubular peyote stich using a large core wire and seed beads strung on 28 guage wire. Hand wrought heavy guage copper and one of my multiple layer fused dichroic glass pendants beads...Enjoy!!

Kite Fest

What a great weekend here in Milwaukee. The weather was just beautiful. We spent Saturday afternoon at the lakefront for the kite festival. We had a great time saw some really cool kites and some incredible competitions...6 kites moving together like they were all dancing to the music...some really well done routines. They really have to put their whole body into controlling the kites...and they get quite a workout. We will definatly go again!

We had friends over for a bbq in the evening and then we all went down to Tosa Fest to see the band the Love Monkeys. They put on a great show. we all had fun....what a great time.

Also on Wednesday night I went with my daughter and friend Debbie to an art show called the 999. It was 9 performances...dance, drama, music...that were all 9 minutes long. After the show we walked around the 3rd Ward and checked out some shops and galleries. We also walked out on the breakwater and explored some of the cool spots on the lakefront....what fun!!

I love my torch

I have been having so much fun at the torch now that I got my oxygen concentrator...my girls and hubby are loving it too. It is a bit of an adjustment after using that slow burning hot head torch. Been working on stringer and twist canes and just bead shapes in general. Playing alot with color mixes and searching out what I can on the internet. I have retty much burned through my starter glass rod set and am looking forward to getting some specialty glass.

Here are the beads from a great evening of taking turns at the torch with my daughters.