Nuts about nuts

[The Justified Sinner]

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 suppliers to get back to me about parts of projects, so I made a simple ring today as a kind of "back to basics" refreshment, reminding me of the sort of pieces which started the whole scrap iron thing with me:

 A corroded nut - found in the street - and a rhodolite garnet. No precious metal at all. I just filed the threads out of the nut and flush-set a 6mm rhodolite upside-down in it. Very pleasing to make and surprisingly comfortable to wear. I also got a package of materials from my friend Elizabeth in Pittsburgh:

The wonderful coloured glass is scrap from the now-defunct but incredibly-named Youghiogheny Glass Company. I don't even know how to pronounce that!

[Brigitte Martin]

Happy to see that your Pittsburgh ties are very much alive. That package you got is a treasure trove. If you need more, ahem, certified Pittsburgh debris... I am your girl. Just a quick trip for me down to Construction Junction. In fact, can we talk sometime (phone/skype), I would like to run an idea by you and could use your craftsman-ly input.