Contrariwise ramblings

Hello.  My name is Contrariwise and I have an addiction.

If you see one that you like, let me know. Also check out my shop (and my recent sales) for examples of my work.

Look to my next post where I'll feature larger cabs that would be perfect for cocktail rings or small pendants.


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Do you want to subscribe to my blog by email? Click here!.
Would you like to be a Contrariwise follower? (I love having more friends!) All you have to do is click on the link on the left in my side bar.

Squirrels and I have a love/hate relationship - they love my birdfeeder and I hate the cheeky little thieves.  With spring imminent, they are starting to show themselves.   The following is by Daniel Meyer~ From "Life is a Road, Get on it and Ride". I think it's one of the funniest things I've ever read.

I never dreamed slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous!

Little did I suspect. I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns and slow traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile suddenly shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me.
It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it -- it was that close. I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me.

I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves!

Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes.

His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leaped!

I am sure the scream was squirrel for "Bonzai !" or maybe "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was nothing short of spectacular...

He shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in the chest. Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack.

Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity.

As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans, this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel.

And losing ...

I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil little rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there.

It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser. But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH!

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and, with the force of the throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact, he landed squarely on my BACK and resumed his rather antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him! The situation was not improved. Not improved at all.

His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result.

Torque.

This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very good at it.

The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement.

The squirrel screamed in anger.

The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy.

I screamed in ... well ... I just plain screamed.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, and roaring at maye 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of death on his back.

The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.

With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike.

This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle ... my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the big cruiser.

About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil mutant NAZI attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-face helmet with me.

As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel, however. The RPMs on the Valkyrie Dragon maxed out (since I was not bothering with shifting at the moment), so her front end started to drop.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet. By now the screams are probably getting a little hoarse.

Finally I got the upper hand ... I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked ... sort of.

Spectacularly sort of ... so to speak.

Picture a new scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by, and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car.

I heard screams.

They weren't mine...

I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street. I would have returned to 'fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have. Really ... Except for two things.

First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol car were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into somebody's front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been in the driver's seat was standing in the street, aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car.

So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway.

That was one thing. The other?

Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me. That is one dangerous squirrel. AND NOW HE HAS A PATROL CAR. A somewhat shredded patrol car ... but it was all his.

I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made a gentle right turn off of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I decided it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a whole lot of Band-Aids.


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I made so much jewelry over the Christmas break, that I'm still way behind posting about it in my blog and listing it in in my online shop.  And here's another piece that I finally got around to photographing.

I made the band of this ring by fusing silver. Fusing silver is a method of joining it without solder.  The metal melts only on the surface, leaving the center unchanged.  As you can imagine it's pretty unpredictable.

This ring was an experiment that somehow worked.

I originally planned to antique the silver, but after seeing the result I couldn't.   I just loved the way the silver curliques are incredibly shiny and crisp against the background of the band.  And because of the extreme heat I used to fuse the metal, the silver on the band reticulated, leaving it with a wonderful soft sheen.

Only after I made the band, did I decide upon the stone.  I had a chunky square amethyst and thought it contrasted nicely, so I bezel set it on the band.  (For those of you who do silversmithing, I think you can appreciate how hard it is to bezel-set a stone on an uneven texture.)

I was so pleased with the way this ring worked out, that I decided to try fusing silver again.

Guess what.  It was a complete and frustrating failure.

After the abysmal failure at my second attempt at fusing, I think that this ring may end up being a one-of-a-kind Contrariwise creation.

If you want to see more photos of this ring, click here.



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Here's a pair of earrings that I thought I sold but I just relisted in my shop.

I bought these cabs earlier this year and I fell in love the set you see on the right and stayed up very late making the mountings for new earrings. I just couldn't resist working with my new purchases!

By 1 AM I'd finished 2 bezel settings and was trying to solder on some decorative bits. Then in an awkward moment, I dropped a mounting.

Awk!

I could hear it hit the concrete floor of my garage. A quick search didn't lead me to find anything -other than the realization that I really should clean under my soldering station. So I got a flashlight and searched everywhere!

Drat! I couldn't find it. Half an hour later, I gave up, thinking I could look more thoroughly after a good night's sleep.

The next morning, I must have spend over an hour searching for the missing mounting, and cleaning up in the garage as I went along . There was all kinds of crap under my soldering table - boxes from purchases, plastic bags, chemicals, stored stuff I might use some day - but no more.

I didn't want to give up. I'd spent too much time on the setting -as well as the time I spent searching for it- and it had to be somewhere.

After going through every inch of the floor, through the trash, underneath the cars, I decided to search my trash can once again. Maybe in my frenzy it got thrown away with the trash.

I looked through it, unfolding the little bits of paper and small plastic bags I'd crumbled and thrown away. Then finally, when opening up an old plastic bag, something fell out and I heard the sound of metal hitting the floor. THERE IT WAS!

Yes, now I could finish those earrings. FINALLY.

And here there are!

I'm pretty pleased with how these earrings turned out. They're different than anything I've ever made before. The stones are bezel-set with a decorative "frame" around the bezels. I also antiqued the silver to highlight the stones and the settings. These earrings have a real hand-crafted artsy look to them.

They not demure little earrings. At about an inch and 1/4 in height, they're are large and make quite a statement. The photo on the left gives you some idea of the perspective.



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Yes, Mooshu will be cheering for the Colts this Sunday.  As a Hoosier, how could he not???

We've been living on and off again in Indiana for the past 30 years.  (No, not MooShu. He's only a puppy.)  So it's obvious that we're rooting for the  Colts.  But about 10 years ago, we briefly made Maryland our home.

I'm really not a huge football fan.  So it was a surprise to me that, whenever I was asked where I'd moved from, the immediate somewhat disgruntled response was inevitably, "Oh.   Indiana.  Yeah, you stole our Colts from us."

OK.  Dead pause in conversation. 

This happened every single time I mentioned that our family had moved from Indianapolis. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Obviously people in Maryland take their football very seriously and can hold a  grudge.

As you can imagine, this got tiring pretty quickly.  After a while, I decided that, rather than taking the defensive, I had to do the opposite.

So, whenever I got asked where I was I was from, I took the offensive:  " Oh, we just moved from Indianapolis.  You know, HOME OF THE COLTS."

This also resulted in a dead pause in the conversation.  At least it wasn't DIRECTLY due to me.


(Oh, and if you couldn't tell, MooShu's a Peyton Manning fan.)






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We have a little boutique near us that sells really adorable jewelry and knick-knacks.  I especially like visiting it because they have candy that I used to have when I was a kid.   They have things like candy buttons on rolls of paper, wax bottles filled with sweet colored liquid, wax lips,  Skybars which have 4 flavors (vanilla, chocolate, fudge and peanut butter - I would never eat the vanilla).  They have Razzles which are halfway between candy and gum (which meant they weren't really good candy and they were a pretty poor substitute for gum), and Fizzies, which you can put into milk and turn it into different flavors (entertaining, but pretty yucky as I recall)!

Of course back then, candy used to cost a nickel or a dime. These now cost just a little bit more.

My daughter could probably spend hours deciding over the candy but she also loves the jewelry they have.  Probably because they look like the candy and sweet treats that the shop sells!  But I just found an Etsy seller, Robin's Jewelry Box, that has similar cute items that are really affordable.

Look at that little cupcake necklace!  It really looks good enough to eat!  But that ring is really adorable.  I don't usually buy jewelry since I make it myself, but I don't make things like this!

I think Emma would like that cupcake necklace.

[Follow-up, Sunday evening:  nope, Emma wanted the matching Peanut Butter and Jelly Necklaces.  She's keeping one for herself, and giving one to her best friend. ]



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When I was little, one summer my mother took me to Eastern Europe to visit relatives who lived on farmlands there.

It was very strange and incredibly backwards to me. I dealt with no TV, no friends, odd surroundings, strange people who spoke a foreign language, homesickness, and OUTHOUSES!

Now that I look back on it, I had a wonderful time.

I remember wandering alone near a barnyard one day and, finding a long piece of copper wire in the dirt, I began playing with it. Eventually, inspired by my surroundings, it gained shape and became a horse.

Although it was long ago, I remember this vividly. Afterwards, my relatives were amazed and made a fuss that, out of boredom, I had created a piece of art out of rusty trash that I found on the ground.

That wasn't the last time that I created something from wire or dabbled in the arts. But over the years I got older, went to school, got a job, and had a family. Somehow I made time to have hobbies and create, but it was stolen time.

A few years ago I started making jewelry. Stringing beads evolved into using wire and metals which evolved into metalwork, which I am very happy with right now.

Above are a new pair of earrings I made this weekend by playing with a bit of scrap wire.


It all comes around, doesn't it.



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Can you tell that I've been busy in my workshop lately? I spent many fun hours there over the Christmas break but I hadn't really gotten a chance to take photos until recently. So I have a lot of new work to share with you.

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A few weeks ago I decided that it was time for this plume agate, which I've had for a while, to embark on a new life as a ring.

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I'm really drawn to both red and blue stones. I understand why I like red stones because I wear a lot of red. But I don't wear much blue - and the brighter hues don't suit me at all. But I love it none the less- possibly because it's such an uncommon color for stones.

This is the reason why I've become fascinated with Sonoma Sunrise. Sonora Sunrise stones are made up of Chrysocolla, which is a beautiful blue, and Cuprite, which can have some wonderfully vibrant reds in the better stones.

Whenever I can find them, I try to snap these stones up. I probably have half a dozen of cabs waiting to be made into jewelry, but when I saw this particular one, I couldn't help myself.

The colors are so bright, the pattern so lovely, and the rectangular cut so unique. I just had to have it. And as soon as it arrived in the post, the stone and I had a date in my workshop immediately.

And in my mind, from the first instance I saw it, I knew this stone was going to be a ring.

Unlike necklaces or pendants, I think rings are a personal joy. When you wear a necklace, it's only seen by others, but when you wear a ring, you can enjoy seeing it on your hand all day.

This particular cabochon is quite hefty. Most of the rings I've made are quite a bit smaller, but what the heck! I don't want to be boring and do the same thing all the time!

Oh and I ended up adding a little dragonfly to the underside of the setting AGAIN! (Yes, I love that stamp.)

More pictures of this ring can be found here.





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MooShu learned the hard way that you should never go to bed with wet hair.
And he doesn't look too happy about having his picture taken looking like this!

But a few quick swipes of the brush made him feel better about himself, and now he's ready for anything!

Yes, he may look innocent now, but if you're not careful, he'd steal the sock right off your your foot. (Which he's doing right now, as I type!)


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