how to recover from a mild mishap - or, help, my turquoise is on fire ...

So, here's the thing. I'm not good at being told what I can't do. If someone says I can't do something, it kind of plays on my mind, like, why can't I? - until I do it.


I like to make my own way. You can tell me, but, I'm going to do it my way anyway, even though I know that I'm probably going to mess up.


Well, I've done this before, and muddled through fine, but today ... today was a different story.


Here's a necklace I made yesterday.

I was fairly pleased with it as I had made all of those little bezels, but, deep down I knew it wasn't going to lay properly on the neck.
It bugged me but I finished it anyway by putting a chain on it. Then I tried it on, and, sure enough, the little bezels kept turning and twisting and refused to play nicely with the rest of the necklace. Sooooooo, I thought, perhaps if the links were soldered. But, I also thought, I've already set the turquoise and you can't solder after you've set the stones ... 


So, you see, this is where it all started to go wrong.


As I said, I've done this before and I have been lucky enough to succeed, (really lucky) but, today this is what happened.


(All you jewelry makers out there, close your eyes at this bit, it's not a pretty sight.)

To be fair, it was quite spectacular as there was real fire and everything. Who knew the thing would actually catch fire! I expected, if all went wrong, that it might scorch, but not real flames. I had to blow it out.


As you can see, I started to take the bottom turquoise out of the bezel. And, it would have come, but then I thought, oh, to @^^&$ with it, and I changed the necklace up to this.

It's not really what I wanted but at least it lays properly :) and there's always another day to try again.


And now really close your eyes ... I decided that I would still use my burnt turquoise.


Really?!!! you ask.


Yes, really.


So now I have this.

And, this. 

I don't know, maybe I'll keep them, maybe I wont, but I still had a good day in the studio :)




saturday notes:
i have tomatoes on the tomato plants! And, peppers on the pepper plants! One day there wasn't any, the next day, loads ... exciting.
we've just finished watching yet another, (how many can there be?) zombie movie on the t.v. this time set in london. we were laughing as they were definitely ninja zombies. one minute they weren't there, the next minute they were everywhere. a bit like the tomatoes really. stealth zombies, only they made too much noise - screaming and stuff.
now, the return of a man named horse is on. ripped nipples an' all. and a man has just cut his eyes open. good grief why!