Doubtful Beginnings...

Well, I believe we are finally back on track after an interesting week or three...

I should be reporting on a regional conference I was helping organize - Quality Matters this time around, in Seattle.  I was looking forward to it...had volunteered for too many things...but excited to be able to meet up and talk with some great people.  However, it was just not in the cards...

The weekend before was also something we both look forward to - General Conference.  We get to spend the weekend listening to various talks from the general authorities of the church as we knit, work on chainmaille, and discuss the various talks.  One of the predominant themes throughout the sessions was the importance of family.  This is something we both feel is extremely important, even if we do not have children.  We are still a little family of our own, and many of the principles still apply in our home.

We were looking forward to the quiet, restful weekend.  Patrick had been sick and needed rest, and I was overly stressed with work and school and the conference.  So my body did what any normal body should and it revolted by also getting sick, followed by Patrick joining back in.

We were packed and set to leave at 8am on Wednesday morning, but after another night of not so restful sleep and much getting up, and some contemplation on my responsibilities with the conference we decided we could not go.  I was very sad.  Luckily, all my responsibilities were shared, so I wrote notes, sent emails, and made calls to make sure everything went smoothly.

But some very interesting things followed, beginning with the decision to just take the rest of the week off.  I knew I would need the time to recuperate and it took off the daily decision of whether or not to go to work.

It was the best decision.

So with days filled with rest, little stress, and lots of relaxing, we were both able to get feeling better and spend some much needed time together.

Family is important.  And with all the connections we have with family, the one person you get to choose to be in your family is your spouse.  And while each family has traditions and ways of doing things, it is the relationship with your spouse that requires a lot of nurturing and work.  We did not do anything spectacular or have any really deep conversations, but we were able to nurture our relationship and remind ourselves that we chose to be a family.

By Saturday we were definitely feeling better and took time to do some things together outside of the house.

First, we headed over to a local gardening center and made miniature gardens (a definite Lisa thing - but Patrick made one too.)  After gathering our plants and pieces we both had places that needed something, so we brought them home and added....rocks of course!

We then went to our local gem and mineral show and picked up some more pretty rocks.

Lisa's stash has some lace agate, petrified wood, moissonite, and other pretty green and purple agates.

Patrick found some great pieces of blood stone, which the camera just could not capture, and Lisa picked up the black/brown obsidian. 

Patrick picked up another amazing piece of obsidian - if you hold it up to the light there are clear pockets!  And a beautiful blue-green agate - which we are both fighting over.

It was a good week, even if it's beginnings were doubtful and stressful.  When you listen to each other and the Spirit, good decisions happen.

We have definitely reinstated that we need to make sure we take the time to spend time together and nurture our little family.

And now to do more cool stuff with our pretty rocks...

Is that a fish bowl or my spare head???

Yep we missed last week. It was Lisa's turn but you can blame me. In two words kidney stones...my first bout with the buggers and things got complicated. But, everyone is feeling relatively better now.

This week we have two fun things for you.

First a new armor weave I've been playing with

This is scale maille. The scales are a proprietary scale made and sold only at theringlord.com, but the general design would work with a similar scale you make yourself. The materials seen here are also the exact materials used for the elf armor in the Hobbit movies...

Here's the back

As you can see this kind of scale maille is a form of chainmaille. There are two others: one where the scales are riveted to cloth or leather (like to try that), and one where the scales are laced together (tried that not as fond of it as the chainmaille kind).

Scale maille is interesting because the force hitting one scale spreads out to the scales around it, softening the blow in any one place.

Not ready to say what I actually intend to make with it (this is my first test/learning piece) but its going to be fun.

Second item:

Some time last year I bought a cheap fish bowl as part of a line of jokes Lisa and I were doing. The guy at the store thought I was kidding when I said I was going to put rocks in it but,,,

Now the scary part from today...

It's getting full! and that doesn't include the other bowl that I'm putting little stones in (or the ones that I've pulled for projects, actually made projects with, given away, left in the car after showing someone, or Lisa's private museum of natural history in her office...). So if anyone thinks I've got rocks in my head... nope they're on the coffee table!

Tumbler is on park for a couple of other projects but I doubt I'll be running out of shiny rocks for a while (and instead of playing with the tumbler in ten days that's another hour or so I have to actually make something with these things (Hopefully pictures of some of that in April))

Well, I think that's today's post.
Be nice
Be kind
Be good.
Hopefully Lisa is back next week.

Sew you want to be an artist...

Yep as promised we have a project to show this week...

Do you feel like the choir isn't quite tough enough for you?

 Want to sneak a little 'heavy' metal into church?

Are you just a fan of shiny things?

Well then this project is for you

The chainmaille hymn book!

Ok, technically it is the chainmaille hymn book cover....

And yes there are still some modifications to go. But the first one is up, running and standing on it's own.

This first run is 16 gauge 1/4 inch aluminum rings sewn onto a denim backing. The book is held in with 2" elastic and some pockets at the end.

The pockets are actually proving to be problematic, both in getting the book in and in securing the sides of the chainmaille (that's why the ends look a little wonky)

The top and bottom do ok, but the sides with the pockets are a sewing problem... Of course anyone familiar with good blue jeans knows the riveting solution to the problem... rivets! (Ok, did you really think I was going to play a whole blog post straight?) I'm planning on replacing the pockets on the mark two with brass strip (abt 3/4 - 1 inch pieces) bent into a U and riveted to the end of the maille and the cloth backing this will make the ends look cleaner, hold the chainmaille better in that direction and add another color element. They also create a pocket that doesn't have some of the problems the cloth ones do (like tending to get sewed shut when you try to attach the maille).

The rings are aluminum so it's lighter than you might think and you can get a decent grip on it. Of course if you want to you could do brass, bronze, or stainless (you can also use anodized aluminum in pretty colors (Just in case you want to convince someone you got your hymn book from the Tardis...))

In other news both Lisa and I are writing away. I've got both blogs running. My novella is driving me nuts but coming along. More about my writing in two weeks... Lisa is still working on the dissertation and will be doing three conference presentations next month (and more goodies in the works).

Any one thinking that's all the mischief around here has probably forgotten what tomorrow is (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...Irish heritage... and Patrick for a first name... I'm just saying...).

But that is another story... (hey any chance to make a Conan reference...)

Seriously that's it for today. See you next week (unless Lisa forgets again...don't worry  Lisa actually wrote that.)