Last Week

Ok, first off I would like to answer a question I was asked recently,  "why don't you join a gym?" Well lets compare to what I'm doing now that I have the shop going and doing the cooking/baking thing...

Benefit of the gym: you can do an upper body workout.
Benefit of the kitchen I can do an upper body work out (come on gym heads try kneading some bread some time!) I can also practice hand eye coordination (read: knife skills!) and as a side benefit if I "eat it", it probably tastes better than anything in the gym!

Benefit of the gym: do cardio on the stair stepper or the treadmill, you can even run with wrist weights to improve your work out.
Benefits of the shop: do cardio on real stairs, by walk/jog/running out to the back workshop, or repeated strikes with a hammer weighing between 1/2 and 8 pounds. I can improve my workout by hauling five gallon buckets with up to 50 pounds of rocks in them, large pieces of steel, bronze or pewter ingots, 20 lb propane tanks, cinder blocks and/or 2x4s, 4x4s, and sheets of plywood! Side benefit: all the stuff I'm carrying is usually mine to keep, give away or sell as I see fit, and the gym charges a membership fee to borrow stuff; the 'membership fee' for my shop is my mortgage which I'm paying anyway.

Benefit of the gym: getting to hang out with a bunch of people who... HEY WAIT!!! WHO SAID I WAS A PEOPLE PERSON!!!

Anyway on to the main topic of the day...

We got home from the Layne family family reunion today. I think over all a good time was had my most (If I say all someone will complain just to complain, so I'll stick with most). There were no fatalities reported (except for a couple fish) but first aid skills were practiced by a number of parental units (and I'd have some pictures up but the camera needs some first aid of it's own...)

In addition to the traditional games, lots and lots of talking and going down to the lake adventures; we did a rock activity, which I have to say went fairly well. There were sorties to get raspberry shakes (OK are raspberries really native to the area, or is this some weird northern Utah marketing thing????) and several projects of one sort or another including knitting and at least two chain mail projects of mine (and Patrick descends into about 45 minutes of "chain of command" jokes that I will spare you...)

Thanks to Lisa, her parents and all the family that came out it was fun.

Am I going to have less to talk about now that the rock activity is done?

 

Less to talk about? Not flamin' likely!
Also Lisa is talking about writing more in this blog, and I have my other blog going too...

Until next week, happy Fourth of July. Have a blast (but be safe doing it!).

no matter how small

In the book Guns Up Johnnie M. Clark describes how Marines operate: a barrage of artillery then an advance no matter how small. Generally this is followed by another barrage and another advance. This has been how the last week has gone and how this week is going...

Several projects in the works, several projects making progress but for some of them progress is the most positive thing I can report!

Not to worry friends and neighbors! Reinforcements have arrived and more are on the way! Lisa's sister is her for a few days before the family reunion...

and then there are these guys...

 

I know, I know the  composition is bad and the background is busy... I'll Photoshop it later!  These are Jelly Babies (shrieks from at least two people "they do exist!"). This batch arrived early this month and have been helping out on some of my projects (with a really high casualty rate, especially among the red, green and orange flavors...).

We didn't get the project I'd hoped to do in this post done. There were rain delays and schedule issues. Both serious items... the project involves fire and cinder blocks and the Jellies hate unintended steam explosions almost as much as I do... as for the scheduling issues, some times I do need to be there for other people!

I do have the other item I was going to show in this one so that's what we will go on to.

This is a project that you can do with metal and pretty rocks (like some of the ones at the Layne reunion...)

It is a chain main project to make a pendant.

But before we make shiny...

I really had to put that in. My sculpture professor at ISU always accused me of invoking Fleetwood Mac if I put anything chain related in a project, so here we are...

For this project we will use two pairs of pliers (I prefer flat jaws (no teeth) one pair is flat nose and the other chain (needle) nose) and 20 gauge 3/16 inch stainless steel rings.

And yes we have pictures...

The top ring is a representative ring of our group you are going to open one of these so you can slip other rings on it and close ten rings so that they are complete smooth circles. Now, put your ten rings on the one ring and close it. This results in what you see in the bottom set.

Next

 

 Each of the next eight rows has 15 rings, so go ahead and open 120 rings... For the first row we will be working in twos and ones. Slip one open ring through two of the rings on the previous row (the ten rings on the one ring) and close it. Slip another open ring through one of the two rings that we connected the first ring of this row to and the ring next to it (so the first two rings of this row are connected to three rings on the ten ring row). The rings are going to start forming an overlapping pattern. Next slip an open ring through just  the one last ring in the ten row that you attached one to (so it overlaps with the other two on this row). This is somewhat like adding a stitch in knitting and easier to explain with pictures I don't happen to have on hand :(. Repeat these three rings four more times to complete the row. The second set in this picture is with four rows done... rows 2-8 are easier just connect the first ring to two rings on the previous row, then insert the next ring overlapping the first (connecting to one of the same rings and the unconnected one next to it).

The set on the left in this picture has its eight rows attached. We insert a  pretty rock and close up the top. This will vary a little bit depending on the size and shape of your stone. But generally the next row is five rings. Each ring is connected to three on the previous row (connect one to the first three, one to the second three, etc.). For the next row just run one ring through each  of the five by it's self. Connect those rings (all five) with one last ring that should lock in the stone.

And you get...

A stone and chain mail pendant that you can string on a cord or necklace. I recommend stainless steel or sterling silver both for strength and cleanliness. You could use some aluminum alloys, but some of them (and bronze and brass...) tend to oxidize in ways that can leave stains on cloths or skin. You could use enameled copper but copper is pretty soft and you might have to step up the wire gauge to compensate (and get to see less of your stone).

Well, assuming I survive the reunion see you next week!

What the 'Trek?

Ok, a couple of important and interesting (yeah in my dreams) things today folks...

The wars continue... The ornamental peas have been subdued (Ok, after clearing the ones around the roses I got really happy on the others with the string trimmer!). We have moved on to one of the classic enemies, spiders. They  love to come in in the spring and fall, and find places they like to stay in the basement and stairwell (note: most of them have the sense to stay out of the active workshop area, but less active spots are nice terrain for them). So I have taken to using glue traps...

And some of the spiders have taken to attacking other spiders stuck in the glue traps... Apparently I've brought the La Brea Tar Pits with me and the spiders think they're saber tooth tigers!

They are definitely trying to impersonate LA traffic (actually I was singing while working in the basement (everyone (and everything!) is a critic)).

Second item... As I mentioned last week I started a new blog. Unlike last week, I'm thinking I might put some thinky stuff in this one still as the mood strikes me. The new blog is meant to be a more professional blog for me as a writer and researcher. There is an will be some interesting and cool stuff there (I just won't be talking about rocks and setting things on fire (too much that is!). I'm planning on doing posts for the new one on Fridays (posting schedules help!). Here's a link: http://wordsmeanstuff.wordpress.com/

Third item... Getting ready for the reunion... in addition to working on the plan for the food, I decided to see how some of the amethyst from the reunion mix would 'cook up'...

 

This is just after a rough tumble. I'm going to say it's coming out pretty nicely! I had plenty of good stuff to fill the medium barrel...

With leftovers!

 

The batch included a couple big enough to be carvers, some smalls that would be reasonable ear ring size and some pendant stones that I really don't want to have to wait the whole process time for (but I do so oh well!)

Item the fourth...
Some of you know and some of you don't that I am a convert to the church. Something fewer of you know is that part of what lead me to accept what the missionaries were teaching me was an episode of Star Trek the Animated series. What this episode provided was the idea that truth and learning was spread out through out the world, but no one had all the truth, no one had put the pieces together. I came to the conclusion that this also applied to the Christian religion, everyone had parts but no one had the whole of it. I chewed on this idea for a couple years, then I met some friends who introduced me to the missionaries. It was at that time I first heard the story of Joseph Smith. In that discussion I received confirmation that I was right, parts of the truth had been spread through out the earth; however, I was also wrong! Someone else (many someones really, but one in particular) had been looking for that whole truth and was told, as I believed, that none of the factions of his day had the whole truth. That someone, Joseph Smith, had the privileged to be the first modern prophet of God, the first prophet of the restored church of Jesus Christ on the earth. Thanks to him and the prophets and apostles that have come after the church has been restored in our day with all the pieces Heavenly Father sees fit to give us, in the proper place.

Now why did I bring this up?
1: I think it's kinda important!
2: Hulu has recently picked up Star Trek the Animated Series. So, for the first time since 1987 I got to watch the episode! (I'm including a link because it did not want to embed in the blog : (  http://www.hulu.com/watch/638128)

Well, that's it for today...
Already have at least one cool item for next week (two actually). And there's one more that I want to do for next week, but there's only one problem... for weeks I've been wanting rain, and now I need it to stop raining!