moonrabbit

I was pretty happy today. First, me daddy came in and took me for a quick lunch. My boss got all sentimental when I said I was only gone for 20 minutes or so. She said I could have taken alot longer for lunch with my dad whom I seldom see... Her husband died five years ago, she has two teen girls. So understanding that, she probably would have let me take an hour because she'd like to see me closer to him.
We had a good little chit chat. I showed him the stones I had cut and told him I was going to try to get stars out of the quartz from the mine up the road from where I grew up.
Our roads and boat ramps were made of the stuff they dumped out of the mine in the 30's. That was anything not good enough to a transistor radio... So I have some damned nice stones.
See I don't think there's enough technology these days that requires crystals. Like in stargate...
He said if I can make any jewelry out of the stuff from the mine he could sell it in no time in the office with the t-shirts.
I showed him the little chainmail bracelet I've been working on. Chatted a bit more then headed back to work.

My boss walks past me desk and sees the bracelet laying there as I coil more wire for the rings. She says she loves it and would trade the silver off me.
I said I was hoping she'd sell it on consignment and she said sure. Here's the thing... She wants it to be necklace length. So 17 inches or so. It was only 7 inches at the time and already 52 grams. Which means I needed to melt down another 70 grams or silver or so, and mill it into wire. Which I'm getting so sick of doing. I have to be sure to use my left arm more but it's so akward...
Anyway she wants me to finish it up and she'll put it out on display as soon as it's done. The wire is half milled to the right size, I think I can finish it up tomorrow.
Now she wants to do it in gold. Which would be crazypants expencive. But she's seen some italian designer who had something simaler and says the one I'm working on would look just like it. Sep' it was white gold.

Got back, ate, fed the little fuzz-punks and headed right back out to the lapidary club. Finished cutting the one quartz cab I started last time and the bloodstone I've had around for a while. They both have these little inclusions in them I'm kinda pissed about. The quarts looks almost like a crack. And would probably take alot of work to grind out of it and it's almost a perfect shape as it is. Looks like a little drop of water it's so clear.
The bloodtone. I'm not sure what it is. but it showed up after I tried to get out some scratches the grinding wheels put into it. Then these little white dots showed up. Who knows. I'm gonna leave it. They don't have to be the greattest cabochons ever.

The shop's going to be open thursday nights for a little while too. So I'll go in and get working on this next one.. I cut out the chunk I want to use today. It's a pretty clear section of crystal. But around the outside there's this crust of lower quality quartz. This matrix of little white crystals formed all around it. Like the crystal was still growing. But not as nice a quality on the outter layers.. Who knows. Maybe if they had a chance to form further they'd have become clear..
I'm going to cut the cab and leave the crust as a backing. I'm hoping the inside of the crust has some reflective value. It might end up with kind of an opal effect. We'll see. I can get a big cab out of the piece I cut tonight and I still have the whole mid section of the crystal left. So there's maybe eight faces I can cut cabs from? I think.

I'll get pictures of the ones I cut tonight at some point. Mebby after the other one's finnished... I gots to get some laundry done and get to sleep. Guh... More wire milling tomorrow... At least I can do my own projects and get paid for the time and for selling it. But damnit.. Next time I'm buying the freaking wire.