Frustration

I've been trying to duplicate some of my older pieces and I'm running into some frustrating problems. The mandrels I have to make jump rings on have either changed in size (unlikely) or are different than the ones I originally used.  It's only a difference of a mm or so but it's enough for the ratio of the rings to not work right.  Frustration!  Unfortunately metal dowels don't come in many sizes, at least not that I've been able to find.  I think I was using wooden dowels when I made  the pieces I'm trying to duplicate.  Wooden dowels are certainly not ideal but do come in many more sizes.   So for the moment, or until I have a brainstorm, I won't be able to make a tight  doubled Aisan chainmaille weave.  The Tragedy!

Golden Asian Chainmaille Bracelet

On the bright side, once I stopped banging my head against the wall, I came up with a nice, simple but elegant earring design.  Pics when I do another photo shoot.

I almost met my production goal for this week, I made two medium pieces, a bracelet anbd necklace and one small piece, and updated the blog twice.  I also received a bunch of  beads that I ordered from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads, they have great sales sometimes and I got a lot of goodies that hopefully I can incorporate into some designs.  To be honest I'm not great at beading.  I can spend hours and hours on a piece of chainmaille but try and do the same with a beaded piece and I get bored and frustrated.  Go figure.

In exciting news I just have to pick up a fire extinguisher to have in my studio and I'll be ready to start soldering!  I'm hoping that the micro-torches I'm planning on using will be hot enough, I'm not ready to make the investment in a full torch and gas bottle setup, not to mention not having the room.  As it is I'm going to have to do some major cleaning and put up lots of shelving to make room for soldering.  Even so I'm very, very excited!