On Friday, I was sent to the most annoying meeting I've ever been forced to go to. It was given by a moron, an idiot who thought that it was enough to pompously declaim his unvalidated, ill-researched opinions on things relating to "sustainability", yet was hypocritical enough to brag about his "frequent visits to Greece" and his "two weeks in the Maldives", presumably all involving flights. Well, it is nice he can afford these things by selling his services as an advisor on…

Having now had a couple of weeks where a combination of loads of things on my plate and general late-autumn lethargy have conspired to prevent me from making any blog entries, I'm back to it after a week in which I saw an opera featuring a depressed singing egg and created a seriously dangerous structure.

Having seen the Call for Entries on Crafthaus for the "Hot…

I wanted to have this piece finished for Hallowe'en but things got in the way, so here is my Spoon Skull Cross, a bit of fun made from iron wire from a building site in Brighton, a rusted bolt, some flat ground tool steel from a derelict workshop, a silver souvenir teaspoon, silver, copper, rubies, sapphire, garnets and carnelian:

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A flying visit to Birmingham for a meeting and the opening of Terry Hunt's marvellous "All Golds" exhibition. Terry has been one of the main educators in the jewellery industry in the UK for over 40 years, teaching at the jewellery school of UCE in the city at all levels of expertise. In his way, he has taught many of the current "movers and shakers" of the industry and to celebrate his retirement - it is hard to imagine how anyone could ever replace his boundless energy and educational…

While I was in Genova, I went to see the newest contemporary jewellery gallery in the town, Te.Ta.Bu., located in a back street near the castle gate in the ancient part of the city. Run by Camilla Teglio, Barbara Taramasso and Emanuela Burlando, this gallery aims to showcase the works of the makers as well as others. 

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It's been a week where I've not been able to proceed as I am waiting for other people to do things, thus Fashion:Victim is waiting for a piece of jet to be carved and Future Legend is waiting for some fresh acrylic enamels to be delivered. Instead of working on those, I've spent the last few days dusting off half-completed projects and finishing them, largely to restock my Etsy shop.

Some of the completed pieces:

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It is cold and has done nothing but rain all weekend here so I spent the day at my engraving bench working on one of the elements for Future Legend. I'm fairly pleased with the way this came out as it is the first piece of scroll engraving I've designed and engraved myself all the way through:

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It's funny how one thing going wrong can eclipse everything else which went right!

I've had that happen today. I picked up working on Future Legend again, having given it a break to get on with Fashion:Victim for a while. (Fashion:Victim is at an impasse as I am waiting for a jet carving to be made for it and for some stones to be sourced!) 

Future Legend has been nearly completed for some time now, so it should be a matter of…

I left the workshop tonight, fully intending to spend the evening engraving but found, instead, that my bike had a puncture and, worse, that I had packed the wrong pump (Presta not Schrader) in my rucksack, so it took me almost twice as long to get home and now I have no time to engrave... Still, I've got the piece (a part of Future Legend) in the vice, ready for tomorrow, then I am going to have to patch my inner-tube. Bah!

The somewhat odd title of this…

I didn't really get a lot done today. Too busy dealing with other things and the students!

I did make a mould of the pewter hawk's foot, using a 2-part silicone rubber compound and making it into a 2-part mould by a very rough-and-ready technique:

I used this stuff before and it is…

It struck me today that I have been using a tip bench trick for ages now which I have selfishly not shared with anyone, not out of malice or self-interest, but simply because I use it so very regularly that it never entered my head until one of the students mentioned today how unusual it was. The idea originally came from another one of my students who asked me why there are no tube cutters for jewellery of the sort plumbers use to cut pipes. Her partner is a plumber and he gave me a…

Just back from a long weekend in Brighton.

And back into the workshop for more on Fashion:Victim. Both the ball elements are nearly ready for development into finished pieces. The hinges are completely on one and the other has the main structural elements for the hinge in place - should be hinged…

One of my students is so hard up just now that he is selling off his gemstones. Normally, I love buying gemstones, but this felt like I was doing something wrong. Still, I gave the (fair) prices asked, so nobody lost out. It is just sad that it has come to this. Hardly surprising as precious metal prices rocket, though I was amazed to see that silver was actually higher in 1980 than it is now, something I only just remember. It was 1980 when the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the market.…

One of the other lecturers at work found this hammer in a cupboard in the engineering department:

It's a bit rough-and-ready, but I can easily dress it and make it into a decent raising hammer. I especially like the label on it:

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I finished another bell today and made a video of how they sound.

Apart from that, I didn't do too much except for making another corroded nut ring to see how it would sell on Etsy:

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Not that it is that time already, but after posting a request for information about bells, I finally took on board the advice I was given and coupled it with snippets found trawling through online fora and made a falconry bell. It actually rings, looks the part and is probably light enough that it could actually be used for falconry though it is actually going to end up on my falconry-inspired "Fashion:Victim" piece.

In case anyone is interested in such matters, here is the progress…

Hmmm... I do like Crafthaus, so it was most alarming to me to be unable to access it for a whole day yesterday due to my ISP finding a routing issue relating to it and me having to wait until it cleared. Fortunately, it is cleared now. The good side of the whole event is that I finally persuaded our network manager at college to unblock it, so I have access there too, as do my students. 

Been really busy with the new students, so I've not had much time to do my own work:…

Fairly easy day today. Spent the morning in the workshop and the afternoon with my students with learning difficulties, all of whom have studied with me before: gratifying to know that they wanted to come back again! A lovely group to end the week with, I think. The workshop is proving a little bit frustrating at the moment, as I am between several projects, all of which need some serious time spent working through the details on paper, or 3D models need to be made or I am waiting for…

Well, the students are back and their usual daft fun has begun. I came into the workshop today to find this on my benchpeg:

A present from Sweden. Unfortunately, the new students who don't quite have the same…