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.