This is Milly our new kitten, who I’m sure will make a great workshop companion!! From where I sit at my bench, I can watch her chasing leaves / flies / bees (!) in the garden – and hopefully I can stop her catching the birds that she seems to be getting more and more interested in!
Open Studios had to be cancelled this year for obvious reasons, so I was really happy to join my neighbour and talented artist and printmaker Jo Tunmer for Open Windows in July. Jo and I set up outside her house and it was a great day. Thanks to all our friends and neighbours who came along to support us. It was really lovely to have some human contact after lock-down (socially distanced of course!).
My husband has made me a new workbench! He’s been promising to make it for over a year – so I guess there are some advantages of lockdown!! He’s made it out of some of the rafters from our roof that were removed when we had our loft conversion done – so they are 90 year old pieces of wood! It’s lovely to think that they have got a new lease of life. The cut out with a tray under is a life-saver as it catches all those little bits of silver that I’m always dropping. It used to drive me mad searching on the floor for the jumpring or other component that I’d just made especially to fit! My bench peg is also at a much better height to avoid getting back ache. A big thank you to Mike!
Thanks to everyone who visited our Open Studios this weekend. I was exhibiting again with my friend Caroline Henricksen, who is a very talented botanical artist. We had fun and enjoyed chatting to all our visitors about what we do and I could show people my studio and the equipment that I use. We had some lovely comments about our work.
These are my new enamel earrings. The silver flower shapes were enamelled in my kiln and then hung on hand made silver hoops.
Thank you to everyone who visited our Open Studios in July. I was exhibiting my jewellery with my lovely and talented friends Caroline Henricksen, a botanical artist, and Shan Hill who paints and also makes jewellery. We had a lovely time and felt very supported by our friends, family and neighbours.
This pendant is made by careful piercing (sawing) silver and copper sheet and then soldering the shapes together so that they then appear to be one sheet of metal. It takes a lot of filing and sanding to get the surfaces to be completely smooth and free of solder. This ‘married’ metal has then been framed by putting it on to another piece of silver. To avoid the solder of the married metal from running again, I used a cold connection and riveted them together.
This is one of my best selling necklaces. The design was inspired by a hare we saw bounding across the fields one evening when we were on holiday in Suffolk.
Nancy K Jewellery 