Bangles and Gnomes

These bangles made in the Bead Gallery's Beautiful Bangle class are difficult to photograph. One is sterling silver and the other copper. The instructor, Iris Sandkuhler is very knowledgeable about the scary soldering process. I learned about some new tools, bangle sizing and shaping, and that koolaid has another use besides dyeing yarn. It is acid enough to "pickle". In soldering that means to clean up the metal after melting the solder in. As an interesting digression Iris shared her adventure to one of the three borax mines. It brought back memories of the old ranger on Death Valley Days and the 20 mule team borax teams. (The back ground is the moss now starting to cover my patio since the wet season has begun.) The borax is used as flux. It helps the solder flow where it's supposed to go. It was a large class and I'm so happy I did not set anything on fire.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gnome is waiting for his beard yarn to fly in from UK. Yes, I could use Lion fun fur or something else, but that paypal button is just too easy.


I used left over silk garden and the beige just makes me feel he is naked. I'll see how the beard works, but maybe he needs a shirt.

Look how big Kiko is.

It is impossible to get her to sit still. She is not a lap cat (not yet anyway) and attacks anything that moves...like feet and the camera cord. She would love some real mousies, and is addicted to her laser pointer.