Look up in the sky! It's a bird... it's a plane... it's SUPER-GROVER!

Does this omelette remind you of anyone?

Je suis orfèvre et je sifflote quand je travaille.*

Here's one of my pewter projects in progress.

Ignore the lines - they are reference points for shaping.

I'm really pleased with how it's coming along,

though it is a little off-center at the moment.

This one, my baby, finally got a rim put on.

You can still see the solder mess in this photo,

but I cleaned it all off afterward and it looked good.

That is, until I decided to try buffing it. The buffing machine is a beast, but I refuse to be scared of any equipment in the studio. So I shined it up, and it was looking good. And then it got caught in the machine, spun around many times, and got all the symmetry dented out of it. I don't think this photo really does justice to the damage. I reshaped and knocked out most of the dents before I even took this photo, but you can see in the rim and on the side the amount of work I still have left to do.

I also have a large deep bruise on my arm from the machine as it was bouncing around and I was trying to turn it off. It made lots of noise and many people came over to see what terrible thing I had done. Oh dear people, your gawking did not help alleviate my pain or frustration.

Oh well...

*I am a metalsmith and I whistle to myself as I work.

Can I get your love?

A little more progress on my knitting...

Is it too early for me to get excited about planting these?

Probably a few months too early.

A whole season too early.

My hands always smell like metal now.

It isn't quite finished - it still needs a rim, a base, and a patina -

but here is my final copper piece for my holloware class.

This weekend, we had a workshop with pewtersmith Fred Fenster. Pewter is so strange to work with. All the things I know about metal are useless when working in pewter. It's incredibly soft, melts at a very low temperature, needs a gap for soldering, and work-softens rather than hardens. It also contaminates other metals and needs to be kept totally separate, which meant the workshop ended in a frenzy of sweeping, wiping, scrubbing, and vacuuming the whole studio. All in all, it was a wonderful experience.

Here's a piece of Fred Fenster's work:

I hope my own will eventually be ready to show.

Food Day.

Pro Crass Tea Nation.

What do you do when you don't want to be doing what you should be doing?

Apparently I ignore all deadlines and start knitting

the most complicated thing I've ever knitted.

I've always been afraid of colorwork, but here I go.

And it's not so bad.

Fri-day is Food-day!

Apparently I'm not giving food enough of a spot in this blog, so I'm going to initiate Fri-day is Food-day!, in which I show a photo of something delicious Jake has made (sometimes with my help, mostly with me staying out of the way).

So.

This is crustless quiche and tomato soup, made with basil from our garden.

Yech.

I don't even know what to say about this.

Impatience.

Jake has already opened one of the jars of green bean pickles.

Vest Wishes.

It's starting to get cold and I'm starting to get hungry for knitting.

I want to make something that is easy but interesting,

and I'm thinking of this vest from Knitty.

The color possibilities are overwhelming, though, since any earthy color would work.

Here are some of the colors I'm considering:

"Can" I eat it yet?

We canned! We "put up" six pints of green bean pickles and some pickled cabbage, which isn't quite sauerkraut, but still feels like an homage to our eastern european ancestors. The green beans are from the farmer's market and the cabbage is from our garden. Lest you think it doesn't look like much, that is several pounds of green beans and a hefty harvest from all of our cabbage plants. It packs in tightly.

We needed a pot with an enamel coating,

so the vinegar wouldn't turn cloudy....

we now have the cheeriest pot ever.

Nature versus nurture.

What is up with these crazy cats that live with Jess? First Schrodinger decides that she should incubate the iris bulbs as if they were eggs... and then Buendia thinks that this is a normal cat thing to do and joins in.

Look out, Pollack.

Here's a photo of the paintings that Jake and I made for my new room.

I moved into a new place!

We all got owls.

I bought fun paint brushes to spice up my room.