Hot Time

It has been a great summer for picnicking and hiking in Ohio. We spend a lot of time at Hinkley Reservation, and although summer is winding down, we often are still there well into the evening.

Now, read the following vignette about last night, keeping in mind that for fun and relaxation, I melt glass on a propane fueled torch. (You can see my work here.) Picture large, hot flames…

We did not have many charcoals for the grill, so we had added some wood. The photo of the grill is obviously “pre wood”. It was burning quite nicely and we were melting marshmallows. So, I’m sitting on one of those canvas chairs that are so ubiquitous nowadays, and a big glowing ember pops out from the fire. Onto my head. That’s not good.

So, I hurriedly swatted it off my head, and it landed – on my t-shirt. I did not immediately knock the ember from my shirt; I was delayed a bit, because I wanted to make sure that my hair was not burning. I think my daughter was also trying to help with my hair too. It was a little frenzied. In the meantime, my shirt actually caught on fire. That’s really not good.

At that point, my son is helping me too. I had ended up slapping the ember from my shirt onto my pants. I was somewhat preoccupied putting the fire on my shirt out – with my hand. Anyway, my son succeeded in pushing the ember off of my pants – onto my shoe. I think that by this time, the fire on my shirt has died off. Now, that’s a little less not good.

He helps me again, by stomping on my shoe to knock the ember off – and to smash my foot. But at least I’m not burning anymore.

You would think I would be better at handling fire.

In addition to setting myself on fire, I make artisan lampwork beads in my home studio. See my website www.SpawnOfFlame.com.

New Clothes

The other day, my high school age son informed me that he needed new clothes for the Homecoming dance. He also asked if he could get something to wear to said dance. That is all well and good, except that the dance was THAT NIGHT.

I asked him if a dress shirt and slacks would be alright – thinking maybe these things are more informal than in the past. After all, things could have changed in the 3 or 4 years since the last offspring of mine had gone to a Homecoming dance. Nope, he needs a suit.

Is it reasonable to think that we could go find, and get fitted, a suit in the interval between when he asked for the suit and when he needed the suit – which was about 6 hours? Yeah, maybe for a teenage boy.

We ended up with a compromise – use the older brother’s suit (which was a little large), and buy a new shirt, a tie, and a belt.

Crisis solved.

Silly Cat

Can someone tell me why, when there are fresh water bowls all over the place, does the cat feel the need to drink from somewhere else?

Wire Wrapping

I have decided to expand my jewelry making skills! I love the look of chain maille and elegant wire wrapped pendants.

I recently signed up for an online class with SLC Uniques to learn more about wire wrapping. Her classes are in an interactive video streaming format. While this may not be as ideal as a true classroom format, it is an exciting approach to learning. It is certainly more affordable than traveling to a class, easier to fit into a busy schedule, and opens up a whole world of learning possibilities.

My class was yesterday, and the picture is the pendant that I made for the class – my very first framed cabochon.

The frame is sterling silver made from square and half round wire. This is the first time that I have used anything other than round wire. Why did I wait so long?

The cabochon itself is a glass lampworked freeform piece that I made just a few days ago. I am very excited to have a new way to make some finished jewelry from my lampwork beads and cabochons.

See more of my artisan lampwork beads on my website www.SpawnOfFlame.com.

New Fish

In my household, other than people, we have a dog, a cat, and fish. Many, many fish. Numerous large tanks. You get the idea.

Among the fish that usually inhabit our tanks are plecostomus. These are algae eaters and otherwise cleaner-uppers, and can grow relatively large – easily a foot long or more in a good sized tank. They also can live a long time – our oldest, John, left our worldly waters a few years ago at the ripe old age of 22 years. John, incidentally, was named late in his life, and was bestowed his name in honor of my son-in-law. I’m not sure that John, the son-in-law, realized what an honor it really was to have this fish named after him.

A few years ago, we had a bristlenose plecostomus. These fish don’t get as large as the “regular” pleco, maybe 4 or 5 inches at most. They also get these bristly protrusions on their noses, hence their name (stating the obvious). She (I think – because her bristles were not large) is also no longer with us, and I had not adopted any new ones, until now.

I bought a DOZEN babies of these fish on AquaBid last week. They arrived, quite vigorous and healthy, and have been happily scraping the glass in my tank for the last few days. They are so sweet – the smallest is a little less than an inch long. I am looking forward to them growing up in our tanks.

In addition to raising fish, I make artisan lampwork beads in my home studio. See my website www.SpawnOfFlame.com.

Lunar Eclipse

There was a lunar eclipse a week ago, and I actually got to see it. I live in Ohio and when I am aware that there will be an eclipse, it seems that the sky is cloudy. Usually, I am just not aware that it is happening, but blaming it on the weather is fun.

We got up early in the morning – 4:30 or so, and watched it for an hour and a half. It was spectacular!

I don’t know if this is related, but the night before, my family was at Hinckley Reservation. Right when the sun went down, the moon was rising over the opposite side of the lake. Between the lighting of the setting sun, the crystal clear sky, and the reflection of the full moon on the lake, the moment was breathtaking.

I am almost too embarrassed to relate the rest of the story. I decided to go back the next day to see if I could get a photograph, but had forgotten to check to see what time the moonrise would occur. I figured that it couldn’t be all that different from day to day. I was wrong! It changed by a half hour and to make matters worse, I was not really sure what time moonrise was the night before anyway. It was starting to get very dark, so we began to make our way back up the trail to our car. It turned out that if I had waited another 10 minutes, the moon would have been up – but I still would have missed out on that magical lighting of the night before.

Glass Washing

One of my many interests is making glass objects using a torch. This is often called lampworking or flameworking. I usually make beads, but I have made a few marbles and freestanding sculptures.

One of the ingredients, so to speak, of making glass object is colored glass rods. I spent a good part of the day on Saturday washing a portion of my glass rods. There had been a leak in the roof, and with our recent pseudo monsoon season, a lot of water had gotten into one of my storage containers for my glass. I did not know that this had happened and the whole bucket had mildew in it – including the labels that identified what color each of the bundle of rods was. Some of these colors look a lot alike, but behave very differently in the flame, so it was very important to me to get the glass cleaned and relabeled.

It was a big job, but it was a pleasant day. I had help too; my daughter washed glass, and the cat and dog just hung around with us. I rediscovered some colors that I had forgotten about.

I put the glass, all neat and tidy into my new glass storage system.

To see some of my lampwork beads, see my website www.SpawnOfFlame.com.