Memorial to a Tabby


Today I am dedicating my blog to a tabby cat I rescued off the road after it had been hit by a car and left to suffer and die.


The hitting by a car and being left is still not the worst of the whole situation, it is the number of people that must driven past it that disgusts me even more than the person that did the deed in the first place.


The cat was not lying on the verge, nor in the grass or bush out of sight,  but right in the MIDDLE of the road, it wasn't lying flat,, but half up on its front legs with its head up (as in picture below), so NO IT WASNT DEAD!!!!! and people rushing to work just drove past it. While I was busy attending to it two cars sped past me neither of which even blinked slowed down or even hesitated, also please bear in mind at this point I am now crouching in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!!!! attending to the cat.


Firstly I ask this question; if I hadn't picked it up how long would it have taken before it would have been reduced to mince meat, how many motorists would have driven over it feeling the bump under the wheels and not even bothered to wonder what they had just driven over.


Secondly; what I think makes this all the more unacceptable; we live in a small boomed neighborhood (crime prevention strategy - for another blog another time) so mainly only residents drive in it and in the early morning only residents, and it further amazes me how these residents drive in this neighborhood - Formula One drivers would look on with envy at the speed they manage to drive on our streets; not a care in the world for pedestrians who like to walk the neighborhood or animals that perchance find themselves out in the streets. 


I wish this story could have had a better ending; I got it to the emergency vet but the tabby unfortunately didnt make it, the injuries were too severe - broken back - so it had to be put down, and this brought me to the point of commentary on the passing of this cat at the hands of selfish uncaring motorists.


I do not apologise for the picture, I wanted to display graphically what injustice was done to this cat today.

In Memory of a Tabby

Looking back at jewellery I've made……

Following on hard on the heels of Epic weekend, I have now had Dismal weekend; Didn’t have a very productive weekend at all to say the very least, and for those of you that don’t know, I am also an IT Manager so my work has an ugly habit of getting in the way and I don’t get much of anything done in the evenings short of watching a bit of TV and cogitating over what the hell went wrong when we made a significant change on the network that should have been smooth sailing and it blew up (figuratively) in our collective faces and that only really leaves the weekends to indulge my artistic side.

Suppose one must be pragmatic about this sort of thing, the ubiquitous “They” say it happens…..

So anyhow, back to why I am really here on the page….. I am working on a ring but the metal is resisting, I get the feeling that the metal is not yet ready to release it yet, firstly I made the setting too big then after much sawing and bending I got it right and then to top it all while soldering (and NOT concentrating) all I succeeded in doing was melting the setting into a useless blob of metal to be recycled back into a new setting, and then to top it all I went on to impale a finger on a needle file…..

So therefore over the next couple of days I will revert to showing a few pieces of jewellery that I have made in the past and hold back for slow blog days such as this;

Cap and frame earrings

Interesting concept….. Design a free form then roll out a strip of metal 0.6mm thick and 6.5mm wide, I then bent, cut, joined and shaped the strip round the pattern. Once that was finished I then soldered plate onto both sides and cut off the excess leaving a small closed box in the shape of the pattern.

Cutting vertically down the length of the frame on the 6.5 mm side I ended up with two perfect exactly the same shape halves which were then finished off with earing fittings and polished up.

Earrings showing out side

Right Earring shows the inside view

Epic Weekend


This was a bit of an epic weekend, firstly I conquered the Eternity ring; that of multiple drilling variety followed by multitude of sawing and filing, now this is done on a very small scale, I know this is part of learning and doing jewellery but this doesn't detract from the fact as I progress I am constantly in awe of the skills that master jewellers have to produce the work they do.
The next step is that I have to get the stones for setting and send it off to the setters (stone setting is and art and a specialisation all of its own, and while I will learn the basics for my own personal interests  - I have set a few cabochon's quite nicely, I will send my work to a professional for final setting.
I haven't yet completely decided what stones I am going to purchase for the ring.

Eternity Ring

The other bit of news is ..... my jewellery instructor has decided I am now ready to take my trade test, I have been attending class for over 4 years now and my work is good enough for the next step, this means from now till April 2012 I will be be honing my skills and practising for the test which is practical in content and takes two days to complete, but more on that as I go forward.

 The Crosses


 Let me start by saying I don't like crosses (my own personal opinion) so I don't tend to make them, I have however made two, one for my wife, she nagged  a lot, and the second was for a project I had to complete as part of my curriculum.


 For the first cross I took 2 mm wire, bent It into shape then hammered it down, once I was happy with the shape I positioned the pieces and soldered together.

Cross

 The second cross was an assignment for class, It required making two rectangular boxes from 1mm x 5 mm  plate, these were then cut and joined to form a Cross, the interlinking parts were then cut out leaves an open bodied cross, to facilitate hanging on a chain I attached an enhancer catch (made in a previous class) to the top of the cross, Not yet finished still has to be polished, looks nice but does not change the fact - I don't like crosses -my cross to bear ( pun intended)