MINERALARTS:

Picture Jasper Pendants

I just finished two Oregon picture jasper amulet pendants. Both are completely reversible and feature double-sided hand-polished discs (a soft polish, since this particular slab didn’t take a mirror shine). It’s rare to find picture jasper with attractive “scenes” in the same places on both sides of the slab, so cabochons are usually cut with a…

ironwing

July 3, 2010

Cats, Iron & Metalwork, Lapidary

Spoonflower Fabric Printing: First Three Test Swatches

Just got my first three 8″ test swatches of my original designs from Spoonflower, the fabric printing company. Spoonflower offers several natural-fiber fabric options. I chose the two that I thought I’d actually use. Colors for these three designs were all picked from the “preferred colors” chart that Spoonflower provides in an attempt to help designers…

ironwing

June 25, 2010

How-To, Needlework, Scratchboard

Shaman’s Iron Ornament

This is forged from a cut nail and is about 1.5″ long. The wide end of the nail was split twice, drawn out and shaped, drilled, then ground and polished. It’s for a larger project and is intended to be sewn onto a piece of leather.

ironwing

June 18, 2010

Iron & Metalwork

A Silver Ring and a Plant List

I finished this ring yesterday. Melting Ice – forged sterling silver, fine silver bezel, red gold, faceted aquamarine, hand-polished cabochon of Chinese “Imperial Blue” waterline agate. The agate is a new material that has only been on the gem market for about six months, and this is the first stone that I’ve cut from it. …

ironwing

June 10, 2010

Iron & Metalwork, Lapidary, Nature

Sunrise Moon Pendant

I cut this cabochon from the same Brazilian agate slab as the Two of Hearts pendant. It’s smaller, a bit more colorful, and is a traditional low-dome, flat-backed cab, a bit less than one inch in diameter. Sanded and polished by hand. The subtle peach, yellow, tan, and white swirls, with a tiny round pale…

ironwing

June 7, 2010

Iron & Metalwork, Lapidary

Jade Cat Claw

Green Cat Claw. A bluish-green to black mixture of fine-grained nephrite jade and coarse-grained amphibolite with minor serpentine and microscopic magnetite octahedra. This odd stone comes from Victorville, CA in the Mojave Desert and is not a typical California jade. Strictly speaking, the coarser-grained dark material isn’t “jade” at all, though the mineralogy is the same. …

ironwing

May 18, 2010

Cats, Lapidary

Turtle Shell Rattle

My New Moon project: dismantling a couple of older rattles to create a more useful and better-sounding one for mazewalking. I collected all the pieces in Kentucky about 15 years ago: a complete young box turtle shell (found on an abandoned railroad track), deer hooves (from a buck found dead in a wooded hollow at Midwinter –…

ironwing

May 14, 2010

Nature, Uncategorized

Tiny Flowers

I’m working on a major revision of my Empire Mountains Flora webpage. The new version will have photos of all the plants. Images will pop up on the same page, allowing visitors to study the list as they look at the pictures. I expect to post the revised page within the next couple of weeks. The desert…

ironwing

April 23, 2010

Nature

Have you seen this plant?

Matthiola parviflora is a Mediterranean annual in the Mustard Family (Brassicaceae) that has recently been documented for Tucson, Arizona. To determine the U.S. distribution of this exotic new arrival, sightings and related information are being compiled by University of Arizona researchers. I found one of these plants yesterday at Saguaro National Park East. Today I…

ironwing

April 9, 2010

Nature

Two of Hearts – Agate Amulet

This Two of Hearts Amulet is made from 14-gauge copper and black steel wire, with a double-sided cabochon that I cut from the center of a slab of translucent white Brazilian agate. The heart-shaped design in the stone is completely natural and literally represents the “heart” of a thunderegg (a solid round agate nodule). It’s…

ironwing

March 31, 2010

Iron & Metalwork, Lapidary, Uncategorized