Machi de Waard

Windy, windy, windy. As I was walking to my lesson this morning I was actually mildly afraid that the trees in the park were going to fall on my head. The wind was whipping around them and they were leaning and creaking and moaning. Plus a few large branches had already fallen off!! But I obviously made it in one piece and am back home again after yet another inspiring lesson. Learned another new technique and will be testing it this afternoon if I have time. I have been working on a ring, another commission and have been having some difficulties. Namely, the gold ball cracked. So I have to start over. This is the photo of the ring with the cracked ball. It actually looks a lot more obvious in the photo. In regular lighting it's actually quite hard to see the crack. But it's there and I know it, so back to square one. Happily the size just happens to fit my middle finger perfectly, so all is not lost because at least I can wear it - the easiest advertising! In other news, I ordered a cross pein hammer from Rashbel and although it arrived today I was most disappointed because it has rust on it and the head is loose. Bah. So I called and happily they are dealing with it very well and will send me out a new one today. I've been waiting for this hammer for a while. A cross pein hammer has a wedge-shaped head instead of a round one. That means when you hit the metal, it will spread in one direction. With a round head, the metal will spread in all directions. So the cross pein hammer is the one to use for the fold forming technique, which produces things such as this:Charles Lewton-Brain developed this technique and you can see more examples on this website.
Anyway, now I am off to attempt once again to make the gold ball ring.