Cones are the basis for several types of stone settings and are also useful for other jewelry making, and recent updates to Illustrator make this shape a piece of cake (actually, pie…). I probably use Illustrator for making cones more than any other shape, and while these are still not that easy, I can save…
Recently I’ve been making a lot of Viking knit chains. Its the perfect thing for me to do in the evenings, when I’m ready to relax and watch some TV or listen to some music. Viking knit is a woven chain that is made by looping wire around a dowel or other small narrow form,…
Usually, you start with a stone, and make a bezel to fit it. But in this case, I made a bezel to fit an odd-shaped cabochon, and the stone broke while I was setting it. So rather than throw the bezel in the scrap bin, I decided to practice making a cabochon. I started by…
The gallery pages on my website are now powered by a plugin I wrote to create portfolio pages for my work. I built my own plugin for this for a few reasons. Lean coding: I strive for efficiency and plugins can cause bloating of wordpress sites pretty quickly, so by writing my own plugin I…
Transferring images to metal for chasing and repousse has always been somewhat of a challenge. There are lots of processes that I have seen used and tried myself, and most of them don’t work very well. I have previously tried to come up with a better method, looking into video projectors designed for cookie artists,…
It has been about 4 years since I have made any work for sale. I have made a few gifts, and spent time organizing and cleaning, but I have not dedicated time to the studio; there have been other projects and other priorities. So I am happy to say that I have finished my first…
I researched Uncle George from the last part of Lila’s tape that I transcribed, and found records for him that show he was not her uncle, but a cousin. While Lila’s father only had one sibling who lived to adulthood, Lila’s grandfather had many siblings, and so there were many relatives. I believe that George…
Note: I received a tape recording from my cousin a while back. The tape contains stories told by Lila Coward. While she was someone in out family, I don’t know exactly who she was. There are some clues in the stories she tells, and someday maybe I will be able to place her in the…
The judge motioned her to take her seat in the witness stand. She was only thirteen and did not wish to remember what she saw, but if her father were to be a free man, it was up to her. Her mother made sure she knew this. It wasn’t very far to reach the wooden…
There is a reason that the southeast area of Oregon, home to the high desert basin, is called the Oregon Outback. Once on highway 31 heading east out of La Pine, the landscape becomes more brown than green and towns become sparse. La Pine is not a large town, with a population hovering just over…