Saturday Morning Tea

This has been a truly amazing week.

Last Tuesday, history was made with the election of Barack Obama as the first African American man to be president. And, on a more personal note, I became a grandmother for the first time on Thursday night with the birth of my granddaughter, Gabriella, to my son, Brendan, and his wife, Brianna. All is well with Mom and baby and I’ll be happy to share pictures very soon.

I feel hope and new beginnings.

Even the temperature outside is gentle and hopeful, hovering around 60 degrees last night when we left the hospital.

This morning I’ve brewed up a steaming cup of a Golden Tip Yunnan black tea, recently arrived. It was a real challenge finding high quality Yunnan black teas back in 2007 but that seems to have resolved in 2008, and there are some wonderful teas coming in.

The long dry leaves are soft golden leaf tips with fine white hairs. Many leaves come in leaf sets like the one in my photo. Even though the dry leaf can resemble white tea because of the fine downy hair, this tea is fully processed as a black tea. The sage-y white look of a white tea leaf becomes a brownish golden color in a black tea due to the oxidation of the leaf.

I steeped the leaves in my little glass teapot for 5 minutes in boiling water. The liquor is a deep rust brown color with a sweet fragrance of fall leaf and earth. Each sip of tea fills my mouth with its full body and notes of peppery spice. It’s very smooth and can be enjoyed with a small amount of milk or cream added. With its natural molasses sweetness, there’s no need to add any sugar.

Today will be a full day in my studio with my teacup by my side as I prepare for an arts and crafts show scheduled for November 22nd at Middlesex Community College in Bedford, MA. Of course, there will have to be breaks in my work so I can go over to the hospital and hold a sweet little angel named Ella.

Studio Wednesday

Nov5

Last weekend I made some sterling silver eyepins and epoxied them into my faux jade polymer clay word charms. In my studio today, I finished each charm with a dangle and placed each one onto a stainless steel cable choker. These chokers are great. Finished with a magnet clasp, I am amazed at how easy they are to put on and take off. I tested the strength of the magnet by giving the choker a tug and it stayed in place.

From left to right above, the dangles are fancy jasper, turquoise, red tiger’s eye, pearl and a glass leaf.

I made the dangles with headpins I created myself with 20 gauge sterling silver wire and my micro torch. I have a confession to make. I’ve had this torch for years and today was the first time I ever used it. I’ve always had a fear of flames and torches. That’s probably why I don’t do more metalwork. When I took a metalsmithing class several summers ago, my heart would practically thump out of my chest every time it was my turn to solder. I always made sure my teacher was close by but I was still very nervous.

I’m happy to share that today I pushed past my torch fear and put my micro torch to work. After going over the directions quite a number of times (ok, probably 10 times), I went out on the back deck and filled the torch with butane. I was so elated when I turned it on and it worked. I kept telling myself that it was a big lighter and that helped ease my anxiety a bit. I rested the torch on the firebrick and turned it on. Then, with my other hand, I grasped a 2 1/2 inch length of silver wire with a pair of old pliers and lowered the end of the wire into the flame just beyond the blue cone. The best way to do this is to hold the wire vertically, not tilting it to either side but straight up and down. A ball formed on the end of the wire very nicely and I removed the wire from the flame. After resting the wire on the brick, I made the next headpin and so on until all pieces of wire had a ball on the end.

The balls were all black from the fire but they cleaned up rather nicely with some steel wool and a polishing cloth.

While I worked, Jack kept a close watch for bunnies and squirrels…

Studio Wednesday

Oct23

Today in my studio I made some more citrus canes – pink grapefruit and lime. I was surprised by how much fun I had making all of these cane slice beads. While I’ve loved working with polymer clay for almost 15 years now, I have never had much interest in cane creation. Creating these canes opened up a whole new world for me. I love to create cane fruit!

This is the view from my worktable. Don’t those logs peeking out from the plastic remind you of…..canes?

I also got a little work done on my September beaded journal “Tree Spirit” bracelet. I love that twisty tree branch stitch.

My friend Amy recently started a new blog called “Exercise Diaries”. She asked me if I would like to be a guest contributor and I was happy to oblige. You can read my post here.

Studio Wednesday

Oct15

I’ve had a really lousy week so far so I decided to cheer myself up with some lemon and orange slices. No, not the fruit and no, not the candy that looks like the fruit but the polymer clay cane variety. I’ve been thinking of making a fring-y bracelet for awhile now, using lemon, orange, lime and pink grapefruit cane slices, and today was the perfect day to start that project!

I took a break around mid-day and went for a nice long walk. What a beautiful warm fall day. It was so peaceful and quiet except for the swishing sound of my sneakers on the newly fallen golden leaves. I love their sweet dry smell. The sky was so blue and the trees were ablaze in orange, red, gold and maroon. As I looked up at the trees, I could see the leaves falling down like a soft rain whenever the breeze kicked up. A perfect moment…

Studio Wednesday

Oct8

Today was not the usual full day in my studio as I was organizing and packing for my trip to Texas tomorrow. I was able to string the necklace for my turquoise cabochon. Originally, I wanted to have each strand directly attached to the beadwork framing the cabochon but the beads didn’t lay right when I tried it. Then I tried adding a bead in between a couple of the caramel picot beads on top. As I did that, I realized that I could peyote stitch a piece coming out of the top. Furthermore, that piece could be built up 3 rows, one for each of my necklace strands. The small oval turquoise beads were purchased at the Whole Bead show a couple of weekends ago. I brought the cab with me to the show so I could match the color of the turquoise. It’s amazing how many different colors turquoise beads can be! I’m still mulling over what to do with the clasp.

I also got a little time in on my September journal bracelet. The turquoise beads on either side of the tree spirit face were also purchased at the Whole Bead show. I love the crackle pattern in them.

I looked on the Weather.com website and saw that it will be 87 degrees down in Texas. It’s a good thing I hadn’t put my summer clothes away just yet. Be back on Sunday!