Barbara S Fernald Jewelry

This red spindle marks Long Ledge, off Great Cranberry Island, warning mariners against running aground when the ledge is covered by the tide. The mail boat passes it several times daily, on its way to and from Northeast Harbor and the Cranberry Isles. Every spring, islanders anticipate the return of a pair of Osprey who find the spindle to be an ideal nesting spot. Two weeks ago, the Coast Guard removed their large nest, claiming it was a navigation hazard. Many of us were dismayed and disgusted by what was an unnecessary disruption of nature. (The spindle has always been clearly visible, despite the large nest inside.)

One week later, mail boat passengers observed the return of the osprey, delighted by their clear lack of respect for authority. Score one for the sea hawks!

I’m headed off the island today for errands and a visit with my Mom, but I actually made myself get up early to get a walk in before my day is caught up with trying to get everything done before catching the boat back home at 3:30.

There was something very satisfying about the way this piece of kelp had arranged itself as the tide went out while I was still asleep.

…I received a delightful order from the Etsy shop of Miss Ficklemedia. I’ve been looking forward to getting these enameled head pins to see how they look with some of my own beads.

I plan to use these with some new metal clay beads, but I haven’t made them yet. This afternoon I tried them out with a few of my flat PMC beads. I like seeing some copper wire with the silver for a change, and the head pins give the earrings a very cool pedicure!

Copper beads, with beautiful green patina, were also in the order. I love how these are finished. Once the patina is applied and the beads oxidize, they are sealed with a satin lacquer and finally rubbed with a preservation wax. The minute I rolled these beads in my hand, I knew I wanted to go right back to this Etsy shop and order more. I can’t wait to use them with some of my own beads in a necklace. Thank you Shannon for your lovely work!

I picked up a bunch of these Lucite flower beads at the Beadin’ Path in Freeport, Maine in January. I just got around to finishing  the silver wire pieces today so I could turn them into earrings. I love the Beadin’ Path. It’s one of the few bead shops I actually get to visit. It is “on my way,” whether I’m leaving or returning to Maine. If I can’t go there in person, they have a great shop online. I usually buy vintage glass, stone beads and freshwater pearls, but I cruise through the Lucite section because I like the colors, and a lot of the pieces are vintage.

The shape of these beads were originally vintage, but these flowers and their colors are contemporary. Making the earrings was a bright spot on a gray rainy day. It was a very good day to work in the studio.

As I string necklaces and make earrings, sometimes I just want a small silver disc for an accent or to rest against a rock bead to take the focus off a less-than-perfect drill hole. When I am making larger beads with PMC (precious metal clay) I try to remember to take the scraps of fresh clay to make these little components. I know I will use them eventually, even if I don’t have a specific design in mind at the time.  I usually have a few of these fired discs kicking around my bead stringing area, but I could always use more. This week I decided it would be better to have a lot more!

The thing is, I did not want to open a fresh package of silver clay to make them. My clay supply is low, and for small pieces that will not be part of a hollow form or a clasp, I decided to reconstitute my scraps and broken pieces of unfired clay. The reconstituted clay is way less than perfect for many pieces of jewelry, but for these small textured pieces that will not be withstanding any direct tugging or pulling, this clay works just fine. I fired the discs at 1650º for 2 hours to maximize the density of the clay and then finished them in a tumbler with steel shot for an hour.

I have started  to minimize the silver clay dust in my studio by cutting back on sanding unfired pieces of silver clay. Reconstituting dried out clay means working briefly with the dust I am trying to avoid. But I still end up with pieces that break before I have a chance to fire them, or designs I decide I really don’t like, and this is still a great way for me to recycle that scrap.

…directly over Bruce’s boat, “Barbara Ann” on an unusually warm and quiet morning in March. Islesford Harbor. View from the mail boat on a Saturday morning commute to the mainland. Not only do I like my job, but I love where I live.

I spent a good part of the day adding new jewelry to my Etsy site. Check it out! I always think that once I take the photographs, I’m in the home stretch. Hmm…not so much. There’s the cropping, choosing, and resizing of photos, then writing the descriptions. But what can I say. I love my job!

Before the three days of rain, I had a chance to use my favorite photography studio: the dining room window. Favorite studio accessories: white tissue paper, sun, and a stick.

Next batch of work to make into jewelry. I love how it looks when oxidized and fresh out of the tumbler.

The ICE resin worked perfectly for me the first two times I tried it. I will definitely keep using it with my collage pieces. (Thank you again to Miss Ficklemedia for reviewing this product in her blog. That entry is what got me to try it.)  I like the look of the seed beads inside the hollow rock, but I have more to learn about that. One thing is not to overfill the compartment I’ve made. One pendant is not in these photos, specifically for that reason. I did not realize I had overfilled it with the resin, until it had already set. This stuff is solid! I ended up destroying the pendant in my attempts to free up the unwanted filling. (I can tell you that ICE resin does not shatter when struck with a hammer.) But I chalked it up to a learning experience. Even without the resin mishap, I was not happy with the results of using dark colored seed beads in the cavity. They just did not show up well. It kind of looked like a dollop of petrified blackberry jam shoved in the middle of an otherwise nice silver piece. And who needs that?

I still use the technique I described last March on my blog (Rock drilling 101) to drill beach rocks, and once in a while a few pieces of sea glass. Depending on the material I’m drilling, the drill bit will make a clean exit on the other side of the rock, but most of the time it does not. Especially with drilling glass, the exit end chips off instead of making a clean hole.

(Did anyone else just start thinking about  jelly beans?)

The same thing happens with granite pebbles.

My solution is to drill into the rock (glass) 3/4 of the way through, (using the hot glue and class cup with water technique), pop the rock out of the glue, and determine where to start drilling from the opposite side to have the holes match up in the middle of the rock. There may be an easier way to do this, and if anyone knows a better way please leave me a comment!

But here is what I do, and I have about an 85 to 95% success rate (…depending on how recently I have been drilling. Practice makes perfect.) With glass it is easy to line up the 2nd drill hole by just holding the glass up to the light. You can usually see where to mark the opposite side, because the existing drill hole shows up easily from the other side.

With rocks it’s a little more difficult to determine. I start by placing the 3/4 drilled rock on the opposite end of a discarded drill bit.

Then I draw a line up and just over the top of the rock, trying to keep the pencil in line with the drill bit. I turn the rock 90º and draw another line. I do this until I have four lines going up and over the top of the rock. With any luck, they will all intersect at one point, and that will be the point where I start drilling the second hole. I usually make a good sized mark on that point. I check it by spinning the rock on the drill bit axis and looking down at the mark. If the mark stays at the center of the spin, I know there’s a good chance that I have the mark  in the right place.

Even with the mark in the right place, I still have to be careful to place the rock at the correct angle in the hot glue to drill my way neatly through to the original hole. The advantage to drilling the first hole at least 3/4 of the way through is that you will know if your second drill hole goes deeper than 1/4 of the way through, you probably are not drilling in the right place.

The best advice I got when starting to drill rocks still holds. Go slowly and be patient!

It was hard to stay inside and work today. Temperatures in the 50’s, sunny, and  very little wind. So not like Little Cranberry Island in mid March! It smelled and felt like early May. After taking his 800 lobster traps out of the water in December, Bruce set out his first 80 traps of the year this morning. Then, with such a glorious day, he came home, picked up 80 more traps and went back out to set those. Now our fingers are crossed for available bait, a good price for lobsters, and plenty of action in the traps. More traps hit the water tomorrow.

When I walked to the Post Office after lunch, it was too nice to go straight home. I took a detour to Bunker’s Cove to pick up a few rocks to drill.

Back to the studio for a little more work, then back outside for a late afternoon walk. I have finally adjusted to the time change.