Despite Me...

The apples and pears in our orchard are thriving and I've discovered I've made no plans for them! We've got (I think): Golden Delicious (gone), Granny Smith (nearly gone), and Jonathan(?) apples, in addition to Bosc and Sickle pears in abundance. The Bosc pears are the best I've ever had and all are available to anyone willing to make the trip!

Also flourishing are the cherry hot peppers and various tomatoes in the garden: Brandywine Heirlooms, Orange Mr. Stripey Heirlooms, Yellow Cherries, and Pumpkin tomatoes. I haven't felt much like cooking them so I've been existing on a diet heavy in tomato sandwiches, tomato-cucumber salad, tomato-basil salad, sliced tomatoes with salt & pepper, and most importantly, tomatoes right off the vine and into my mouth! Oh yeah, and omelets with tomato, basil, and sheep Romano. Mmmm.

NEEDED: great tomato recipes! Anyone?

The Peacock Girl & All Her Plumage

I know, the male peacock's are the pretty one's, but lets just pretend...

I recently worked on a necklace for a very kind, thoughtful, talented, beautiful girl named Maria. As seen in the preceding pictures, Maria is also a belly dancer. Her guy did a very sweet thing and commissioned a jeweler to create a necklace for her birthday. I was very proud to be the selected jeweler and took the challenge on of designing and fabricating a piece of jewelry that would be well suited for Maria. The requirements were that it be India inspired, formal for use with costumes, easy to wear while dancing, have movement, a bold centerpiece, and some color. The following was my interpretation...

I hope to get a better photo soon, perhaps even one with Maria. It's always fun making something for someone I know. The process of designing and fabricating with a specific person in mind is a delight.

Folk Fest Highlights

This past weekend at the Philadelphia Folk Fest was amazing! For those of you who don't know or remember, I started my little side job as a camera operator last year, which has enabled me to dabble in TV production (note: lightly dabbling side job) when the opportunity has presented itself over the past year. This has consisted of college sports shows, corporate meetings, a commercial, a live parade, etc. It all may seem a little random as compared to my interest in jewelry and metalsmithing, but I've accepted that life is more fun with many balls up in the air (more about other balls later)! Truly though, this work is yet one more outlet to be creative and frankly, it's a bit of a rush! So back to the Folk Fest for 2008 we went to spend some time with an amazing crew surrounded by great music. Below are some of my highlights...

The TV truck in the backstage area with one of the big screens

View of the main stage from the truck at night

In the truck, my first go at being a Technical Director

In the truck, shading the cameras

Doing handheld camera on stage (I Heart Gene Shay!)

Arms getting all wiggly!

Some musical highlights (some new, some old) from Folk Fest 2008:

• Steve Earl
• The Felice Brothers
• Hoots & Hellmouth
• Compadres (Oscar Lopez and James Keelaghan)
• Trout Fishing in America
• James Shimabukuro
• and so much more!

I could do a post on the music alone, but in lieu of not having more posting time, check out the links! These people are GRRR-ATE! I can't wait until 2009!

In Process

I'm working on a really fun commission, but it's a secret so here are a couple of nondescript pics from the bench to confuse the recipient. What could the second one be??

Did you see the meteor shower early this morning? Very cool!

I'm off to the Philadelphia Folk Festival later this week for more fun and I can't wait! Have a great day!

Out of Necessity

Where I find myself...
When I really need and want to be here...
And here...
Where did this summer go?!

Another Blogging Gem...

For those of you who also get perturbed by the misuse of punctuation, especially quotes (and even worse, "air quotes," to which I have been ashamedly guilty of), here's a little gem for you... The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks has been "misinterpreting bad punctuation since 2005." On a side note, it also seems I need to update my color scheme on this little ol' blog here. Anyhow, one good laugh after the last, I found it after linking from Juliet's "Cake Wrecks" post, which is yet one more tasty tidbit. One tip though, if you visit Cake Wrecks, overt your eyes at the foot cake post. Not good.

Editors Note: Although I get perturbed by bad punctuation, this doesn't mean I'm not "guilty" of it. :P

Anniversary Ring Commission

I've been working on this little anniversary ring (size 5.5!) that was a joint design effort between a husband and myself; he provided the inspiration and I came up with this design. He wanted to combine his country of origin - Latvia - and hers - Greece - into a ring to be presented on their fifth anniversary. The husband wanted to include amber, a resource of Latvia and a blue stone to represent Greece's blue and white flag. I selected aquamarine to compliment the translucency of the amber and then decided smaller faceted stones would add some visual interest, but with similar settings so the design was cohesive. Several sketches were sent to the husband, most featuring a fluid wave shape inspired by Greece's most ample resource, the sea. I was delighted when he selected my favorite design! So off to the drawing board I went to create a rendering that would insure neither of us would be surprised with the end product. Finally, I was hard at work in the studio for the fun part, which presented no complications except for a couple slight adjustments due to the non-symmetrical nature of the ring. Overall, I think the inspiration and feel of the original design were achieved. I really enjoyed this project, especially being presented with a challenge that needed a solution that met certain criteria... like being back in school! The collaboration was great too. I love seeing the results of what comes from combining minds. I look forward to more projects like this.

The Broken Plate @ Crafty Bastard's in Silver Spring, MD this Saturday!

Crafty Bastard's Arts & Crafts Fair is this Saturday and I'll be there standing in for the illustrious Juliet of The Broken Plate Company at Booth #47. Check it out:

Saturday, June 28 from 10am-5pm

Pyramid Atlantic Art Center

8230 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, MD

This weekend will be sure to please with many great crafters including some other notable Towson jewelry ladies: Imogene, Liz Mathews, and Beth Pohlman. Stop by, say hi, and cross your fingers for no rain!!

Red Barn Vineyard??

Photos by Maria & Boris

As the seasons pass, I'm slowly discovering all the secrets Red Barn Farm, our home, has to reveal. Last year I was delighted to discover our grape arbor amidst a massive pile of weeds. I cleared everything out leaving the vines exposed where I had found them and was able to salvage a few bowls of concord grapes before the end of the season. Nevertheless, other projects prevailed and the weeds were back with vengeance this year. I readily accepted my denial of the mess due to more immediate chores until this weekend when we were very fortunate to have our friends Maria and Boris up to help tackle the task of properly setting up the grape arbor, sans weeds. Right now the vines are recovering from a major overhaul and look a little frumpy, but I know we'll see the improvement in grape yield for seasons to come. This land is truly ripe with inspiration.

We also discovered some wild blackberries and mulberries today. I'm very excited about the blackberries and couldn't resist staining my fingers and snacking on them right off the vine, but haven't the foggiest idea what to do with the mulberries... they taste like cotton balls!

Darn Good.

Today was beautiful:

• Just the right combination of sunny and breezy,
• The first ripe blueberries straight off the bush are here (I'm working on turning into Violet Beauregarde),
• Great music all day,
• And I got paid to smell flowers... literally.

The smelling flowers thing isn't a regular gig and I got a little sneezy at points (and stung by two wasps!), but it was well worth it. To be honest, I've felt a little frustration over not being able to get everything done recently (or ever!), but a day like today makes all the difference. I'm a truly lucky girl; doing exactly what I want to be doing, surrounded by great people, living the life I want to live. Who could ask for anything more? Wait... I can!! I need my order to arrive from Albuquerque!!