July- and heading towards Christmas!

I hope you are all keeping warm in our wintery weather. I love the way that a cover of snow changes how everything looks. You see all the bare branches of the trees in stark contrast to the snowy background and all the edges of our buildings become soft and blurry against the sky. It makes you look at things differently, which is a great place to start thinking about new designs for our jewellery as we enter the eighth month of the year and - don't growl - Christmas is on the horizon! I have been hibernating and nursing a cold but the gorgeous sunshine outside today is making me wake up a bit and feel as if it is time to make some new creations - I'll have to warm up my shed and put in a brighter lightbulb to get making but there are a few ideas that are fighting to get onto paper first. I recently attended a great class on making cold connections which has got the little grey cells moving, and can't wait to get busy with some new ways of doing things. 
Jo

Our next Committee Meeting is on FRIDAY, August 5th at 6.30, at SIT You are welcome to attend! Synopsis of last committee meeting: We had a committee meeting on July 5 at SIT. We discussed starting up the workshops with a chain making one first and possibly a tool making one soon after. We also discussed the formation of classes and noted that there was interest stemming from our new Facebook page. A teaching preparation day was planned for July 24 at SIT. The plans for an Exhibition are not moving as fast as we would like.  The Lapidary Club will rent us cases again but they need to check on the condition of the cases first.  They are locked up in a container right now.  We are looking at the Hagley Park Events Village and Redhouse in Redcliffs.  We also discussed possible mini-exhibitions after the completion of each course. There seems to be a lot of community and earthquake money available right now that we should try to take advantage of. We discussed setting up a committee to deal with seeking grant funding, perhaps for display cases of our own, tools we might want, etc. Our next meeting is at 6:30 on Friday, August 5 in the Guild Rooms at SIT. Chain making workshop report:    It was great to get the workshops started up again.  SIT is a good, comfortable, airy space with plenty of bench room.  Arthur Harrison brought his examples and expertise to teach two members how to make circle link, bone and money chains -- also known as link-in-link chains.  I met a fellow-member, Louise, who had some creative time away from her 15-month-old twin girls and managed to make a beautiful money-chain necklace of .8 sterling wire in about four hours.  I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of it.  She did very focused work and Arthur was able to give her lots of individual instruction since Louise and I were his only customers that day.  Along with trying to work on my own chain, I was pretty busy doing last-minute work to fine tune the workshop for classes that are coming up soon.  We tried out our new pickle pot and made some adjustments to our bench pin assemblies.   We are planning to have a tool-making workshop as soon as possible.  Thanks very much, Arthur for donating your Saturday to teach us some of your excellent skills.  We appreciate it! Karen Teaching day and class report: Our jewellery-making classes are starting on August 2nd with a Level One class (six students) tutored by Solvejg Ruarus, and on August 3rd with a Level Two class (nine students) tutored by me.  Even though these are not full classes of ten yet, we are happy to have contacted most of our old students who will be able to finish the classes that were stopped by the earthquakes.  We tried to organize Saturday afternoon classes but had very little interest right now so decided to cancel them for the time being and use the Saturday time slot for something else.  We will keep the Term 4 Saturday class in reserve and hope that we can fill it when people hear that we are up and running again. We have all new tutors this term.  The tutors, Solvejg, Karen Atherton, Crystal Mathieson and Chloe Judd spent a day with our mentors, Arthur Harrison and Noeline Walker, and our backup tutor, Jo Crompton to run through our curriculum, studio set-up, workshop safety and handouts.  We needed to learn the best way to set up the new space and utilize storage because everything we need for a class has to be removed from storage, set up for action, and then stowed neatly away again.  It's the new reality of working in a shared space but we think we have it sussed now.  Everything we need is in bins that can be taken out as modules and then stored again in its fixed place.  We are (thankfully!) allowed to keep the gas bottle and the pickle pot under the sink rather than in the storage locker. Safety was another big issue.  We spent a lot of time practicing running the drills safely, learning how to change the regulators, hoses and torches, attaching the polishing hood and mops, and learning how to use the SIT guillotine to cut our supply of brass and copper.   We have all new handouts that used Ed Freeman's generous notes as a starting point.  We finally have a full set of notes for students on how to construct the Fish Brooch and detailed safety instructions for most of  the equipment.  We are ready to roll and will report later on how the classes go. Karen Question about Studio Hours: We have Saturdays free at least until Term 4 and would like to initiate regular Studio Hours if there is enough interest.  Please let us know if you would like to come in on Saturdays to work and what times you would normally prefer.  We will need to arrange a responsible person (a tutor, probably -- someone with a key and safety knowledge who can sell silver) to be there and we will have to pay rent for the room but we think we can offer it as a benefit of membership if we can get a regular group of people who want to participate.  It will be a money waster and a time waster if people say they will come and then no one shows up, so please think about what you would like us to do. Karen

Inspiration
What gets your juices flowing, how do you kick start the creative process, what inspires you? Send me an email joannacrompton@gmail.com and I'll make a list of prompts based on what you say in the next newsletter. Or put something in the Comment box at the bottom of this newsletter. (just click on the word 'comments' and a box should pop up), or try your hand at the new box at the top of our newsletter - go on try something new!

A Couple of Handy Jigs
Noeline Walker has spotted a couple of useful looking jigs that you could knock up fairly easily - or persuade someone handy to do it for you!
The first one is another take on cutting jump rings. Personally this is a bit of a trial and I usually wreck a few jump rings before I get into the way of things, but this looks as if it would work.
First you need to collect some dowelling of different sizes, and measure their diametres. 
Match their sizes to drill bits, and drill holes in your piece of wood. Check for a snug fit, you don't want the dowel to wobble.
Next drill a small hole to one side of each large one. This will take the end of your wire when you start to wind it round the dowel.
Cut a slot to the large holes - this will take the blade of your jewellers saw.
To use the jig, place it in your vice, or clamp it to your work top. Take your wire and poke one end into the small hole to hold it in place. Carefully wind your wire to create the number of jump rings desired. Hold the loose end of the wire tight and place your saw blade in the slot, saw the jump rings apart against the dowel.
Voila! Let me know how you get on, any ideas on how to improve the idea?

The second jig is a handy idea to hold your metal still when drilling a hole - without burning your fingers!
Take a largish dowel and cut a slot in it slightly less than the thickness of your block.
Drill a hole in your block to receive the dowel, it should be snug but you will be taking it in and out.
Place your piece of metal on the block and slide it into the slot in the dowel. Push the dowel down, holding the metal firmly in place, and drill your hole in the metal.
The only problem I can see is to make sure the dowel is short enough not to conflict with your drill.
Again, let me know what you think, and thank you Noeline for the contribution!
Jo