Organic Exercise

It seems that I haven't been at the torch for months. Although I made the little jogs in the last post not all that long ago, I was sorting through my jewelry and beads the other day and it seemed there was nothing new.

Last evening (being back on EST it seems as if it was the middle of the night!) I lit the torch, determined to make some new sets that I could put together into bracelets. Working with organic designs seems to be a good way to ease my way back into the process.

First, I did a combination I am relatively comfortable with... base bead, roll in silver foil, apply wire and voila... what I call my nebula beads. I had forgotten how to prepare for beads like this, so was frantically trying to cut silver foil and wire as I tried to keep the bead evenly warm in the flame.

I've made a number of bracelets with this basic combination and they remain one of my favorites.

I am usually wearing one of those bracelets. Since the weather is changing, I wanted to have a more autumnal combination and used a nice olive for the base of this set, rather than the blues I often wear.

Then I decided it was time to go for something different and picked up an ochre rod to use as a base, pulled some silver plum and iris blue stringers and just went for it.
This set needed a bit of etching to bring out the colors, so it is more satiny than shiny.

This was a good exercise and as things start to calm down a bit with the soap for the winter (famous last words!) I will try to get back to the torch more regularly and will remember to prepare a bit more completely before I get the glass melted onto the mandrel!

Both will be fun to combine with other bits and pieces or beads and wire into a finished bracelet and will round out what I already have in stock.

It's a start and it served to awaken my "torch love."