Ring.

Silver spoons from Peru and quartz. 

Silver dust from sawing. 

Finished sawing!

Annealing.

Shaping and sizing the ring. 

On Wednesday I started making a silver ring in my jewellery class. I managed to snap a few photos while I got started. First I sawed the top and bottom off the spoon. I annealed the piece of silver and passed it through rollers a couple of times to flatten it and make it longer. When it was the right thickness I hammered it to straighten it, annealed it again and shaped it into a ring. Next I need to solder it together and then hammer it to the perfect shape/size. Apparently it's better to make it a size or two smaller as the silver stretches while you're hammering it into shape.   I also need to make the simple setting I designed for the quartz and then I'm done! Once I've got a supply of these stones I'll be selling these rings via etsy. 

Sea fret.

Leeds City Museum.

Yesterday I had a little wander around Leeds City Museum. I found it all to be a bit geared up towards kids for my liking but I enjoyed taking photos of the collectors gallery.   

The holy grail of nautical books....

On Saturday Dianne and I were lucky enough to attend a bloggers preview of the Caird Library at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It was pretty awesome - we got taken upstairs to the store rooms. The amount of documents and books they have in unbelievable! The lovely people there got out some old artefacts for us to look at which were really interesting but the best part was really just getting to look at their extensive book collection. Dianne spent some time looking over a shelf of colour coordinated books on polar exploration while I drooled over a beautiful bound set of Captain Cook journals. They had a really good selection of books on my two Navy favourites - Cook and Nelson! I copied a few titles down to search for at a later date to add to my own collection.    

Check out Dianne's photos over on her blog! 

Ooh Dianne's new Scott tattoo makes a cheeky appearance in one of the photos below! 

Tattoo.

Just a quick post as I start work in 10 minutes!

Last weekend Dianne and I went to get tattooed at the awesome Gypsy Stables studio on Berwick Street in London. I got my thigh tattooed by Fidgit and then the next day Gary was kind enough to tattoo my hand for me!

Here are some lovely photos snapped by the wife. Tomorrow I'll post some of her getting tattooed! And then I'll probably do a London instagram photo round up!

Birds.

A few photos from the Natural History Museum. I'm really pleased with how these came out so I'm thinking about getting a few postcard sets printed. Or maybe some large prints. I haven't had much luck selling photography before but I feel like maybe it's the time to give it another go...

Nelson

Personally I think Admiral Horatio Nelson is one of our greatest war heroes. Anyone who hasn't read an account of the Battle of Trafalgar should do so right now!

Taken at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Friday XIII

So yesterday I went for my tradition Friday 13th tattoo. I went to Needle Queen where I've been tattooed before and they we're doing a selection of Friday 13th themed flash for £13 each. 

Getting tattooed.

 

Broken looking glass. 

Old Friday 13th tattoos. 

First Friday 13th tattoo. 

When I got my first 13 tattoo I just happened to be getting my hand tattooed by Sarah Schor on Friday 13th and we decided to pop a little 13 on there somewhere so I'd always remember the date that I got tattooed! Anyway, it worked! And started a little tradition - now I have 4 Friday 13th tattoos and I'm sure I'll add more. They're a great way of filling up little gaps. 

This song is the soundtrack to this blog post...

I love the history behind the Friday 13th superstition too. Obviously the films did nothing to help it but I think traditionally the superstition of the number 13 comes from numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, the 12 Descendants of Muhammad Imams, etc.. whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. Having 13 people sat at a table is suppose to be unlucky too - this derives from a Norse myth and the Last Super. 

And Fridays have been considered unlucky since in the 14th century. It was been suggested that this started due to the Christian scripture that states Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

I think that anyone who's ever worked a 9-5 job would probably agree with me when I say that Mondays are far more unlucky that Fridays...