Last week was something of a comedy of errors (at least that's how we're choosing to view it) in the Idle Talons studio.
Remember our last post? That lovely red jasper oak tree pendant? Larkin had the frame entirely done, final polish and everything. The very last step was affixing the stone into the piece. On the very last prong of the setting, Larkin torqued the stone just a little too hard and the cab broke! After setting the piece aside in disgust for a couple of days, Larkin cut a new cab to finish the piece.
And in the meantime, Larkin was re-stocking jellyfish earrings. It may be a little hard to tell in the photo, but the large central spiral in *all* of these component pieces is cloudy. Larkin did everything the same as usual and has NO IDEA why these just won't hold a polish. Usually a pickle bath and polishing tumble have these gleaming, but Larkin suspects there must have been a contaminant in their pickle and no amount of re-pickling (with a new solution) is doing the trick. The only sure-fire way to get silver to polish again is to re-anneal it, but because of the way these are constructed, the outer tendrils would melt by the time the center was fully annealed.
This jewelry making business is not all shiny, happy finished products!