Friday, February 14, 2014

Saying Goodbye to Karen

Today we met at First Watch restaurant for brunch to say goodbye to Karen, who's moving to the 'other coast' tomorrow! Bah!

It was a snow day, but we still had a nice crowd: Bodil, Odaybea, Sonia, Sharon, Evie, Mimi, Karen, Jowita, and Ellen K.



Karen got all kinds of presents- links, earrings, food, etc... she seemed to enjoy every second of it and actually got a little verklempt here and there...






Because it was a snow day, we had a kids' table of possible future metalsmiths??




Ladysmiths Jr. had a very important meeting of their own.....




Ladysmiths Jr. was not always a very well-behaved group....




Karen got some good stuff! Earrings from Sharon, and links from Jowita, Mimi, Odaybea, Peggy, Sandra, Ellen Y., Bodil, and Dana.




Mimi showed us work from a recent workshop she took with Barbara Becker Simon. First she made polymer clay models of faces.




Then, she created molds using a new product...




This! Then, she used metal clay (and allowed for shrinkage)....




Pressed the clay into the molds, and fired into some awesome silver faces then made into rings!




Odaybea made these gorgeous dragonfly rings- wowzers! She casted the bodies and then soldered on etched wings (from our last etching workshop!) and set the stones.



She also used a kistka to create wax veining on a seed pod, which was then cast into this heart-shaped piece, just in time for today- Valentines' Day!!




And Evie created this (upside down) file caddy! She stitched an open pocket, then ran parallel lines down to hold mini hand-files. Brilliant!!