How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I've been gone. I learned to make these:



Very Small Silver Bits, from ArtClay Silver. While at Midwest Weavers Conference in Sheboygan WI, I had enough free time to take a silver clay class. I had not fully realized my potential for Obsessive Compulsive behavior until I took this class. I made tiny bits. Everyone else made pieces you could actually see without magnifying glasses.

I tried to justify my tiny bits by adding beads and hanging wires:



A bit better, but tiny bits nonetheless. I put some on coins, you get a better picture of scale:



Isn't that bottom handblown fish just the cutest little fish ever? The fish beads were a gift from my son in Hawaii. Later, after I had spent countless hours burnishing tiny bits of silver, I made a few rings and some bigger bits:



More rings than I have fingers available. I blackened these Slightly Bigger Bits to show off some of the detail, but hey, they are still obsessive little bits. I will work on the rings, finishing up the edges so they look a bit less like pipe parts, but I have been wearing three of them obsessively (how appropriate) ever since the conference.

The rest will be charms, or embellishments on bags. I was so happy to take the class, particularly the interaction with some of my classmates. I try to be a good student, not disruptive, nor demanding (I think I may sometimes fail here). I certainly had fun, and I learned something I have wanted to try.

I was among friends, in a beautiful place, with good weather! The food? Well, let's just say we did leave the campus a few times for excellent dinners in the area. In Plymouth, there was also a piper playing (and a woman with a self-acknowledged Bad Haircut), and in Elkhart Lake, we ate among the pagans and heathens who had driven up from Chicago (the Bad Haircut Woman was there too. We must be a fascinating bunch to follow!). A good time was had by all.