101 UFOs

My Unfinished Travel Blog?

2009-08-21T17:10:00.002+10:00

I'm completely enjoying myself and am not going to sit here for too long blogging. But I'll share some pictures, and then you can wander over to flickr and look at the rest if you want.

Sumburgh Airport "Airplane Crossing".

The Path to Sumburgh Lighthouse

View from partway up Compass Head

Brave (or stupid?) Sheep

If only "translate this page" translated that page well

2009-07-23T16:47:00.002+10:00

Not sure if I'm being berated, praised, or just mentioned as a kind of antipodean curiosity with a coffee theme, but find my "Pot calling the Kettle..." earrings featured on this Russian Coffee Blog.

Google translate doesn't help much, so if anyone out there is up to the challenge of quenching my mild curiosity I'd love to hear from you!

Update

2009-05-28T05:48:00.002+10:00

It's been awhile since I blogged. I've been busy and lazy... which one would assume is not possible to be both at once, but here I stand (sit) both busy and lazy. I think the correct term is procrastination.

The garden is looking good, and I should post some photos of it soon so you can admire the vigorous green of the mustard (and envy my stalky bed of garlic). Sadly the effort I expended in the garden turning over clay and rocks has left me with a rather sore back. I can't sit for long periods at a computer, and digging is a bit out of the question for a while. The physiotherapist says a strained muscle - so nothing too serious like a slipped disk.

I've got a multitude (well, six) more designs for "Idiomatically Speaking". And I've got one design that was a custom request from an awesome English teacher in Grafton. It's not so much an idiom as a common phrase one would use. Like "road kill. We all know what it means, and that it's not actually that the road has gone on a psychopathic murdering rampage...

So now all I've got to do is make several pairs of each, photograph them and list them for sale. Would it surprise you if I said that the part that I find the most time consuming and tedious is the photographing-them part? I think a macro lens for my camera may help there. I'm contemplating allocating money from the sales to a lens, as it's not something I'd consider buying if I weren't frequently photographing jewellery.

I had a fabulous party the other week - at least that is what I'm told. I wasn't in the room much so I'm taking their word for it. Everyone looked amazing in their 1940's costumes and the question of who killed Lord Darcy Firth? was eventually solved. Buoyed by my desire to do it better next time, I'm working on writing another one for my next pseudo birthday party entitled "Grimm Reunion". Probably in a year's time, as I quite like having parties at this time of year and I don't think it clashes with any weddings or babies (that I know of).

All in all, I'm doing OK at the moment. I've started walking again longer distances again (ie: 2km each morning rather than 800m), which has improved my energy levels. Which in turn makes me feel better in general.

And despite the fact it is nearly Summer in the UK, my widget told me that there were 'snow showers' yesterday in Lerwick. I may need to evaluate my packing plan.

The Good Life, pt 2

2009-03-29T19:33:00.003+11:00

Just before it got into Mozzie Hour, I snapped this shot of how far we got. Turning over the soil is going to be a mammoth task (I've done some in the section closest to the camera - where the ground looks a little ochre coloured). There are heaps of clay+rock patches that make it impossible to get the shovel into the soil more than a centimetre or two. You can see that in my next pic....
Despite that looking like it's just resting lighting in the top soil, I stood on that shovel with my full (substantial 'big-boned') weight and all I did was nearly fall headfirst into the dirt. About a cm of dirt and then its the stuborn blend of clumpy clay packed with pebbles & rocks. I've found a way to negotiate it with the fork, but it involves sweat-intensive labour, and sneaking underneath the clumpiest parts, levering them up and then crumbling the clumps by fork & hand tossing the larger rocks to one side (which you can see in the top photo, along the bench is a growing collection of garden variety rocks.

A Good Life

2009-03-29T14:21:00.005+11:00

Do you remember that 70's British show about a couple who decided to escape the "rat-race" and live sustainable?

We had Earth Hour last night. I sat in my sister's backyard with candles (which probably weren't made in any environmentally friendly fashion) and ate our BBQ'd food. It was lovely.

However my sweaty contribution to sustainable living started earlier in the day when I decided started in on one stretch of backyard lawn that Mum & I had decided should be converted to a 24/7 organic, help yourself, food place.

Our plan is to dig up the existing lawn of weeds (as featured above) and plant a 'green manure' crop of bio-mustard, clover & lucerne. This will help enrich the soil for the vegetables we want to plant in spring.

Digging a little below the 'lawn' I discovered a whole lot of sandstone bits (possibly landfill?) and the soil is a hodgepodge mix of sand and clay and fairly bland topsoil. So I'm thinking we might want to remove some of that and cart in some richer stuff to turn through the existing mix.

Because I'm being pedantic about loving the earth, we're avoiding chemical solutions to removing the 'lawn'. I'm currently shovelling it up, shaking the soil out and tossing it into the green-waste bin. Tedious, and my legs are letting me know that they are noticing the squat-shovel-lift routine. But, well worth it!

This is my other contribution to global waste reduction. No more Mountain Spring Water plastic bottles for me!

Idiomatically Speaking...

2009-03-18T22:27:00.006+11:00

I feel as though perhaps one of my sisters have shared their germs with me. But I don't really want to blog about how queasy I've been feeling since the bus left the city today.

What I want to blog about is Sunday night, but I'm too tired to do that so I'll settle with showing you pictures that I took on Saturday.

Firstly, (at least I hope it is first) a tiny coffee pot and tea kettle (more pics can be found here

Then a flutter of wings and a pouncing feline (more pics)

And now, with so frightfully few words of substance, (or idioms) I go to my bed to sleep off whatever it is I've got.

2009-02-20T14:08:00.002+11:00

Yet another UfO lies waiting in my backpack, calling to me with snuggly voices of cashmere and silk. I'm attempting a knitted wrap, the pattern found on Knitty.com. It is called Muir and, besides being something I cannot knit whilst letting my mind wander, it is particularly pretty. And soft. And snuggly.

I imagine it would be difficult to file, polish and solder on an express bus to the city, I felt that knitting would be my the 'on the bus' project. Admittedly I feel I've spent 1/4 of my time working out where droped a YO stitch..... *sigh*

In other news, I've ordered three books from Amazon.com (after exhausting all my usual book suspects in Australia), which I justified as being cheaper than doing a community college course this term. Which they are. And they will provide valuable, long lasting resources for years to come. But it wasn't till I thought of the justification that I felt comfortable with clicking on the 'Confirm Purchase' button.

Funny how that works. The fear of buyer's regret is paralysing when you think you *should* get something, but you're not sure if you can.

Ants in your pants?

2009-02-02T10:05:00.002+11:00

As I sat on the couch to put on my shoes, I felt something akin to a small sharp pain on the back of my lower leg.

I reached up the leg of my pants to brush off what I assumed would be a bit of grit or piece of tree that had come in with the washing and gotten attached to my pants.

Instead I found myself gripping something small, black and moving. I flung it away as my first thought was "SPIDER". I then realised that that was pretty dumb, because if a spider bit me, I'd need to know what kind of spider it was.

After hunting the floor (with one hand clutching the bite area - it was starting to hurt) I found a mid-sized, dazed black-coloured ant

So yes, in fact I did have an ant in my pants this morning.

Spider + Wasp

2009-01-31T16:17:00.003+11:00

Imagine this: You're relaxing on a fine, if overly warm, Saturday morning. Out of the corner of your eye you see something tentacled crawling up the brick wall of your house.

You stop relaxing.

You turn your head and take a better look. No tentacles. Just the dangling legs of a large, limp Huntsman Spider in the determined grip of a dangerously coloured insect inching its way, backwards, up the brick wall with a load far larger than itself does not bode well.

Something (your spider sense perhaps?) tingles.

It drops the spider a couple of times, and buzzed with enviable determination to what surely must be its feast. Over many barriers this vibrant beastie carries its load, only to leave it stashed behind the dense Hibiscus bush before mysteriously buzzing off.

After witnessing this event, we hit up Google for the answers. Were we being invaded by killer wasps? Did we need to call the exterminator and hide under mosquito netting?

The Spider Wasp, though occasionally prone to klepto-parasitism, however is of no particular danger to humans (except maybe Spider-Man).

For more information about this very cool insect (and a mug shot) click here: Australian Museum Fact Sheet

Gang aft agley

2009-01-15T10:24:00.003+11:00

You know the line that goes "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men..."? The continuation of it is "Gang aft agley".
I'm a 21st Century Aussie girl with no familiarity with the 18th century Scots language that Robert Burns was so eloquent with. Suffice it to say that 'gang aft agley', taken in isolation, is beyond my linguistic capabilities. I would probably guess "Go oft' ugly". However! In context I take a guess that it roughly means "often go pear-shaped" - which isn't too far off something going ugly.

That is a rough estimation of my plans for the 2 week break I had over the Christmas Period. I planned to be productive. I planned to work on new designs. I planned to be a shining example of industriousness. I was house sitting, so I thought that the fresh (quiet) environment would be helpful

Instead I managed to do a frightfully realistic impersonation of couch potato. There was an Xbox and a whole collection of DVDs - many of which I'd never seen. I did go swimming a couple of times, which was lovely... but hardly industrious.

It's a problem I often have when I'm having a holiday at home. I start off with great plans, but usually by the third day I'm reverting to "I'm chilling out" - formerly known as laziness. I'm looking forward to a weekend that isn't busy so I can spend some serious time at my workbench. I have some new designs I'd like to get cracking on, and some half-finished projects that are crying out for completion before the end of the month.

Enchanting Day

2008-11-24T16:46:00.014+11:00

I had the joy of attending a wonderfully fun wedding recently. And to top that, I had the honour of working with the bride to create jewellery for her and her gorgeous bridesmaids.

Here are some photos, and please bear with me, as there are quite a few.

l-r: Bracelet, Earrings, Necklace & Headband/Tiara.

Those were the bride's, and were a combination of freshwater pearls, swarovski crystals, sterling silver and some silver plated & silver coloured findings.

Here's the bride:

Next, the bridesmaid jewellery:

How to turn off repeat customers

2008-10-27T10:58:00.003+11:00

Part of my day job involves organising the annual conference for my organisation. It's a small affair with about 30 people from our 10 sites across the state.

For a number of years we've returned to the same venue. The price was great, the location was good, the staff had been helpful and organised and the rooms were comfortable and tastefully appointed.

This year... the rooms were the same, the price was the same, the location was the same.... but I won't be booking them for our 2009 Conference.

Someone in charge seemed to not be particularly interested in our function. Information hadn't been communicated to the floor staff. Discrepancies in the run sheet were not questioned - so no one rang me to check, and they just made an assumption about what we wanted (which was wrong). Details that I'd organised via phone or email hadn't been added to the run sheet, and so the catering staff didn't know.

Information just seemed not to get passed on, the staff attentions seemed to be elsewhere some of the time (I had to frequently go to the kitchen and ask for things like milk or coffee to be refilled).

I found this a useful lesson
a) On my part - don't assume that just because it's gone smoothly for two years, that the third year will be the same. I could possibly have avoided some of these issues by being more annoying and calling the conference organiser to double check and confirm every detail with her.
b) The importance of customer service and open communication.

Come fly away

2008-10-19T15:03:00.004+11:00

This is one of my latest pieces. A commission piece that I was given the concept of (aka: a dove in pieces strung together with jump rings), and I designed it, cut it out and strung it all together. I have to say that my tumbler and steel shot is my new best friend when it comes to making my own jumprings. It was effortless to make them hard and shiny.

The dove is titanium with a cloudy surface texture, and all findings (chain, rings and clasp) are sterling silver. The feather at the end of the chain is titanium with feathery texture engraved on.

So this is why I was breathing titanium dust recently. :)

Hammered

2008-10-13T11:01:00.003+11:00

I woke up this morning feeling as though someone has beaten me around the head with a bottle of Pinot Gris. I'm quite sure that several people in the office think I was out painting the town wine coloured last night, but all I drank last night was about 3 glasses of water and a hot chocolate. So I'm quite lost as to the origins of my headache.

On a similar, yet not, topic I've come to the conclusion that I really love beating metal with a hammer. There's something very satisfying about forging metal - it's noisy, but I love the effects you can get on the surface and how the metal thins out to be more interestingly unpredictable in width.

I suppose forging is bit like having small children around. They're noisy and unpredictable too.

Ok, so beating metal with a blunt object really is probably nothing like having kids around at all.

Both, however, could be responsible for my headache though.

Titanium Snot

2008-10-07T14:12:00.003+11:00

According to Wikipedia, the correct term is 'nasal mucus'. Strangely, snot sound so much more user friendly. Nasal mucus sounds like something one needs to approach a specialist about.

For me, the long weekend offered me three whole days of uninterrupted garage time. Alone in the tiny workspace of a cluttered double garage (it sounds big but honestly, desk & floor space is a precious commodity in there) I was able to practice soldering on a series of "Blossom Rings" in between working on puzzle pieces of titanium.

Titanium is a great metal. It's light, it can take a hammering far longer than silver before work hardening, and it goes rainbow colours when you heat it.

It's also tough. Which is great in many ways - I can use a thinner sheet for a project without worrying it will bend. But it also means that I go through two dozen saw blades in one day, and my drill bit dulls extra fast. And you can't solder it if you mess up and cut through something you weren't supposed to.

All this equates to me needing gutsy rotary tool bits to make a dent on the surface to get the texture I want. And I have to be at it for quite some time with the Dremel in one hand and the thumbnail sized bit of titanium heating up like the surface of Mercury in the other. Which is why frequent breaks of soldering practice were essential. I went from burning my fingertips to singeing my nostril hairs. Good times.

A result of all this grinding of edges and surface texturing (which looks so awesome, btw, that I want to cry with joy), is fine particles of titanium dust. Couple that with a less than perfect dust mask, and I was enjoying the unique experience of gunky black nasal mucus for several hours after I left the garage.

Review of Glorydaze

2008-10-03T16:32:00.007+10:00

Glorydaze on Etsy is a Melbourne girl who makes some fantastic messenger style bags. Not only do her bags look modern and stylish, they seem eminently practical for carrying around all the tools of daily living, particularly if you're a student - or even a mother who would like to fit nappy-changing gear, a change of clothes, rusks, spare toys and naturally, your own wallet, keys and phone into something that's a tad classier than a dufflebag.

Of course, what I really love is the spot at the front for pens and a notebook. Not that I'd use the pen part - mine always get lost if I use those loops, but I love that I could have my sketchbook so easily accessible to jot down quick thoughts without digging through an entire years worth of bus tickets and ATM printouts (yes, I'm one of those people).

And did I mention pretty? Crumpler might make ones that you can buy with beer, but they aren't nearly as delightful as Glorydaze's (handmade) creations.

Lord of a Ring

2008-09-29T01:14:00.004+10:00

Sterling Silver Ring with Pink Gold 'blossom' feature.
September 2008

Sometimes I have these grand ideas for new projects that I plan out on paper and in my head, but after the saw blades bite into the metal and I stand back and look at what I've sawn, soldered and smacked with a hammer, I'm left wondering where I went wrong.

Not so today. Granted, the execution of this idea was not well thought out.... it was a general sort of "maybe if I..... and then I could...." I knew what I wanted in my head, and had attempted to sketch it, but in the end, it's often experimenting with the materials that will tell you the best way to get from Vague Vision A to Actual Reality B.

It's so satisfying when it just works. No dramas about things not fitting, or the silver melting into a pool of metal before the solder even heats. It just all came together and the few minor hitches were easily solved.

The Extra Awesome Bonus is that I now have a pretty new ring.

Attack from Above

2008-09-11T13:34:00.001+10:00

Australia is known for it's warm sunny beaches, the deadly jellyfish, blue ringed octopus, sharks and crocodiles that lurk beneath the waves, the red deserts and the poisonous snakes, the misty grey bushland and the host of spiders lurking and waiting to bite an offending body.

What you may not realise is that danger lurks above between August and October.

Other than Dropbears, possibly the most frightening experience I've encountered in areas with trees (suburban, rural or bushland) is the sudden clack of a pointy beak right behind my head and then the sudden Fwhop-fwhop-fwhop of wings beating the air to give the creature enough height to take another swoop at my uncovered head.

I can face a baby red-belly black snake (from ontop a chair, but I still faced it, and moved it with a stick!) but that sound and feeling of attack from above is terrifying.

Magpies are nesting in a tree across the road from the bus stop. One went after me three times today, and followed me halfway to the next bus stop. I'm not ashamed to admit that I ran like a girl till I was out of its range.

Tomorrow's plan of retreat: I take an umbrella and cringe under it. If that doesn't work I'm taking a long cut through some back streets and praying there aren't any feisty Mama & Papa birds hanging out in other trees along that route.

Under a Carnelian Sun

2008-07-30T14:31:00.002+10:00

I took a walk across Prince Alfred Park, the decomposing leaves of the plane trees (platanus xhispanica) looked like the skeletal remains of giant hands (giants with very thin bones, at that).

A dense black snagged my attention. A charcoal-blackened gum leaf lay damp and incongruent beside the discarded desiduous matter.

Odd as that sighting was, it swiftly reminded me of childhoods in summer, when the bushfire clouds would roll in over our suburb and litter our green backyard with charred and smokey smelling gum leaves. They were perfectly leaf-shaped, often still retaining the fine markings of veins and grub-eaten edges, but they were charcoal all the way through. As though someone had snap-burned them.

I remember one year, the fires got 'close' and we kids were up on the roof clearing the gutters, and Abs packed things into boxes and bags.

Most of all though, I remember the sun. I could look at it through the clouds of smoke and admire the colour, and relish the quiver of fear it created. Bloodshot red to pale orange, depending on the density of the smoke - an omen of the last days, a portent of danger.

Inspired by this memory, I bought several small carnelian cabochons. They're the right colour for a sun behind bushfire smoke. I might make some earrings with them.

an auspicious something

2008-07-08T16:26:00.004+10:00

In a world of mass produced consumerist greed, I attempt to convince random strangers that my handmade jewellery is not only elegant and aesthetically pleasing, but good for the environment and good for the soul.

No private vehicles are involved in my jewellery whilst my pieces are in my possesion. I walk/public transport to my suppliers. I walk to Australia Post to have the items posted across the world. No Cars, trucks or private jets!
I recycle where possible. Packaging, display materials, tools, icecream containers... etc.
No Child Labour, or Sweat Shop Labour went into any of my pendants. They are 100% made by a thirty year old woman who still lives at home.
They are really shiny
They are my own designs. Not that I'm going to claim that NO ONE ON EARTH EVER could have come up with a similar thing. But I didn't copy them from anyone. I allow room for the 'great minds think alike factor'.
They're mini-sculptures. Sort of like if Henry Moore wanted to get into wearable art, and went small scale with silver.

But when all is said and done, mostly I just want a rational excuse to keep making things from materials that are costed per gram. If people buy my work, then that's a pretty good reason to keep going with this expensive passion of mine. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.