A Little Tidbit

This week's nightmare! (see the white prong on the upper left?
how did fine silver get into the sterling compartment?)

Well, no one said brooch making was gonna be easy. But I thought it would be! (insert whine here) Just a little wire backing and make some prongs. Look at all those solder joins! What was I thinking? And I still have one last soldering job to go. Sigh. This setting will be a support for two separate pieces in my next FAM brooch. The first one was so complicated that I thought a simple little setting would be faster to complete this week. But noooo....

Last week's brooch. Memory Stone #1. The slip printed door is on a
hinge and swings open to reveal a photo of an unknown girl.

I have to fire more base metal clay pieces for my students today and then class is tonight. The firings have been going really well, but it *is* time consuming to fire for 12 people. I like Hadar's stove top process for the first, binder, firing. But I think I may be turning the flame too high. I've already blown through one dog dish and am on the second. A lovely man named Jeremie posted on the Yahoo! board about another way to stove fire using just a mesh platform (the video's in French, but you'll get the idea) - not carbon in a dish. I'm going to try that today. I'll let you know how it goes.