Friday, May 29, 2009

Rain and the Garden

The sun is peaking out after a healthy rain last night. The garden is bursting forth with all kinds of beautiful things!





Greggii Sage, verbena, Russian sage, mullein pinks







brand new patio garden settling in after a couple weeks









Fox Glove, Malva, Cleomes, Verbena, Apple Mint, Spearmint, Campanula, Rudebeckia, New England Rose








AND THEN TO THE VEGETABLE GARDEN!

the end of the spinach row and the Egyptian Onions behind it














Swiss Chard (more) coming on really well with (24) tomatoes behind and around it! And that sunflower is a volunteer from last year's garden row and the stem is already almost 3" in diameter!
















Squash (2 kinds here) with the Daikon behind it in the raised herb bed. I put that in too late and it is flowering and the daikons are only about 3-4" long and quite spicy. Will try again for a fall crop though! It is blocking out all light from the basil in there, though there are another 45 plants throughout the garden, mixed with all the other crops! Pesto time is here! Wes is an avid gardener and the garden will never be big enough to suit him I don't think!












New raised herb beds. Both parsley's took to it well,and the dill too! Oregano is on the end and the tarragon sprouted but didn't make it.

















Asian Cucumber almost ready to be picked!!
















And here come the asparagus. Those will be hard to watch for two years before eating! We'll see how disciplined we are next spring when all those purple shoots come out!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Bracelets


Etched sterling sweat soldered onto another piece of sterling with pottery stones. Two in back are men's large (8"+), 3 remaining fit 6.5-8"

Friday, May 22, 2009

Watches


These are the watch styles I am currently offering for orders and I hope to continue adding to the line. I will also continue to do those one of a kind watches as well! These are available with any of my stone colors in them.

On another note, my molds from Hitomi's mold making class are drying. I am anxious to try my tile mold out. It is a bunny in the garden. I will probably need to pickup some clay especially for this and Takuro at STARworks Ceramics has just the one I need! So maybe one day soon I will have some tiles available in addition to my jewelry! And maybe those boxes I was talking about. I did make a few but then got stuck with doing some glaze experiments for them and running out of time for "messing around"!

Happy Memorial Day weekend. The weather looks great for an outdoor weekend!



(here is one of the reasons I was too busy to make many glazes, I had rock to lay!)

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Tuesday morning

Yesterday afternoon I went to STARworks Ceramics for a plaster mold making workshop with Hitomi. It was excellent and I learned a lot. I have made a couple molds in the past, but nothing like this! Lots of little things I didn't realize!! Takuro or Hitomi put some pix on their blog http://starworksceramics.blogspot.com/. I was really pleased with how my two molds came out!

Now back to the bench. Trillium Gallery in Little Switzerland is expecting a selection of work from to be sent out by Friday and the Green Hill Center in Greensboro has devoted a window case to my work. If you haven't seen the current show it is well worth it. We went for
Tom Suomalainen's on the 1st of May. He and Wes were neighbors years ago and it was nice for Wes to reconnect and me to connect with Tom. We look forward to his visit to our home! It was a wonderful exhibition and his installation is really amazing. Even better after you hear his talk and the opera that went with it!

One more big bracelet.
I am having fun with these. OK time to make some watches!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

What Would Happen If We Ate These?














It has rained heavily here, and this is what I found under the orange tree this morning. Only thing is, the orange tree is in the sunroom?





Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The New Big Bracelet



Sterling silver, hand patterned and layered, with a turquoise with cobalt and copper pottery stone.