Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

I had a good long, if interupted session yesterday, 9.5 deg C in the studio so it’s warming up.  I made some more variations on the implossion pendant theme and a couple more pendant designs.  Alas one loop broke in the kiln, but I think I’ll try and fix it next time, pendants are easier (I hope) to repair and reanneal after the event….famous last words.

I have sooo much to do around the house today that I won’t get to play with fire (it’s work Rick) and might try and take some pics for my shop which is coming next week….more on that later.

Better go and stick a wash on….oh the thrill of modern life.

Yay! Kids are back at school, well actually it’s kid and she went back last Wednesday, but still, Yay!

I had 2 fantastic sessions at the torch last week, making some new Hydraengea beads and experimenting with some more new styles and colour combinations. I absolutely love my new design, inspired by a photo I took the other week at Wisley gardens. I had such a surprise when I took the main bead out of the kiln because it didn’t have the colours I was expecting, but gorgeous sunset hues instead. I’m very excited about these, but I’m afraid they’re going to have to stay under wraps for the moment.

But today stank….I didn’t realise how low my stock of white glass had got, having only one rod left and took time to sort through my glass looking for more and working out what other colours I am low on. I’m also reinstated as the stuby queen, spending valuable time today melting white stubies together and I only managed to get 2 more rods of the scraps. I think I’ve enough scrap left for another rod if I’m lucky. So only 6 focals in the kiln today and I think I’ll have to focus on dichroic tommorrow as I don’t use much white in those.

30 mins later…..I’ve just managed to make 2 more wiggly rods of white to use tommorrow.  Phew.

Did anyone watch ER on E4 last night?

It was a bit pertinant to me to say the least. I made the decision when I started this blog not to be personal about myself, but I think I may let on about one part of my life which dominates me and makes me what I am to an exent.

Last nights episode (I don’t think I’m about to spoil anything if you haven’t already seen it) saw Dr Weaver struggle with the fact that she needed a hip replacement at a fairly young age, and discussing the inconvience of her hip problem with regard to her physical performance and how she coped (or didn’t) with her young son, her job and just bending down to pick things up (which incidentaly is very difficult when you have a very sharp pain shooting down your leg and your hip has just locked in a stupid postion for the umpteenth time that day – I speak from experience).

Dr Weaver (the one with a crutch) has what I have….CDH or clicky hip, this is what they test for when a baby is born and they waggle the legs about to see if they ‘clunk’ into a position. It was with a great deal of effort that she said she was disabled, something that I won’t call myself. I can walk, but I need a stick (when I go out), and yes my leg does keep jaming quite a lot at the moment, and no, the hydrotherapy that I’ve been dutifully going to every week for the last 6 months doesn’t seem to be curing the locking which seems to be happening with frighteningly increasing regularity, as does the sharp twang that shoots down from my hip to my knee when I try to walk with a correct posture. Hmmmm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my condition dealt with on a drama before, strange really when it’s not a rare thing, although there is more drama to be had from a heart attack!

What I will say about it is that it’s a pain in the leg, it’s getting worse (oh dear), and the fact that walking for too long or standing on my feet cooking or doing housework or gardening for more than an hour tires me far too much. It gets really annoying after a while. I have so much I want to do, house, garden and work wise, and it just gets in the way and prevents me from doing half as much as everyone else. grrrrr. I should add at this point that I’m not blogging this for tea and sympathy, although some choclit wouldn’t go amiss! I can walk and live a fairly normal life, I just can’t do as much as other people or as much as I used to or I’d like to.
I suppose the up side of it is that everytime I think maybe I should get a part time job (or maybe return to Engineering) to help the house finances a bit more, I realise that I’d be so tired whizzing to work, then looking after my daughter after school and trying to keep some semblence of order in the house (that’s already very hard, you should see our wash basket..it’s overflowing) that there would be NO energy left for Lampworking or jewellery making, let alone the marketing side. What a shame….not..ha ha! and of course what a perfect sit down job is Lampworking! Well Hurrah!
So…if you’re wondering why I still haven’t got my shop up, or done a few other bits to my website, it’s due to exhaustion, and the enforced resting that I have to do most evenings instead of siting at my desk working on my website. It also explains why I seem to know so much about various TV programs……by the way, less than 2 weeks to LOST second series. I can always find something good from my problems!
Have a good weekend!

Hi there, I hope you all had a lovely Easter holiday. I just realised I haven’t blogged for over a week, been to busy.

We’ve been busy doing this and that, but the highlight last week was a trip to RHS Wisley gardens, where we go a couple of times a year and meet up with my parents. This time there was a lovely seasonal Spring walk to follow, which took you past the best of the daffodils, tulips, Hellibores and all the gorgeous spring blossom. So much to see and unfortunately never enough time to complete the walk, I think we only did about a third of the trail.

Woops, now there I was, happily trying to make an implosion pendant that wouldn’t for the life off it implode enough, when Rick comes racing down the garden in the rain to say bye (he’s gone out). Instead of a nice byeeeee, I get ranted at for beading with the door open….it started raining cats and cats and dogs behind my back, very hard, and I’ve managed to flood the floor of my studio and submerge the few garden tools I keep in there too. I also got the digital controller for my kiln wet. Woops.
What a sad ending to my first lampy sesh this school holiday, all I got is one measly small bead and then I cracked my pendant. I then got a poopy loopy, but the good news is I managed to repair the pendant and the loop, and cracked my punty off OK. What’s a girl to do?

Back to the house for a cuppa and a bit of choclit I think!

Wednesday eve

The Easter holiday is certainly here and I’m trying my best to give my daughter a nice time without overdoing it (tight wad!).

Yesterday we had a super trip to one of the local Country Parks with one of my friends and her grandaughter, who my one gets on well with. Today saw us driving to Worthing on a company jolly to exchange bags for my business. After making the switch we headed down to the seafront to take in the sea air and go looking for cuttlefish on the shingle. We got waylaid by the sight of a mini train chugging around a park and took a detour to have a ride. What fun, the train was so diddy and reminded me of my childhood in Bexleyheath where the mini railway used to wend it’s way around the lake in the park there too. There was also a derilict looking 50s paddling pool coloured the obligatory blue, and pedolos on the lake too. That took me back a bit too, to Danson park were we went sometimes to row on the lake, and fished for tiddlers in the stream.

We did make it to the seashore later, but alas there were no cuttlefish today, only lots of the really small seashells and fragments of different seaweed in different colours and textures. We even found some driftwood. Happy days.

Tuesday Evening

Hi there. Not much glass stuff going on my way at the moment, the Easter holiday is here and I’m spending time with my daughter and trying to recover from the weekend.

My parents 50th party went very well, but I was on my feet for about 15 hours and am soooooooooo tired now. My big surprise for my parents was their anniversary cake, my mum said she wasn’t going to bother but you can’t have a golden wedding without a special cake. I had so many moments over the last fortnight when I’ve wanted to ring my mum and ask her about the cake and it’s decoration. So I just bothered my mother in law instead!

As for the flowers for the day, well my dad did those.  He’s so good at flower arranging and did a wonderful display of parrot tulips mixed with cuttings from one of their neighbours shrubs.  He also did beautiful posies of roses in plain Habitat tumbers to double up as weights for the orange and yellow helium balloons.  All of this with the tulip serviettes we chose from the RHS and the room looked very colourful.  Must be where I get it from!