Back On Track

OK, the holidays are over (except for New Year's) and everyone for whom I made gifts have received them. So, I can finally stop teasing and start showing what I did over the past month or so.

Chickie loves her Bar-B-Que grill. She usually buys pork or beef and slaps it on her coals, sitting below her apartment on the "deck" and grilling her dinner. She does it a bit less frequently now that she's in her new place because the grill is a little less convenient for her to get to, but she still loves it. So I compiled about 40 recipies for meats and marinades for the grill for her. And then it was time to try something new - LOL.

I had never made a book before. I thought it would be fun to make her a book, so I purchased the supplies - brushes, glue, papers, grey board, etc. - and two books on bookmaking. I enameled two squares of copper for the front of the book, trying a new technique for me - cloissonae with precision dry sifting instead of wet packing. It was faster. It was much less accurate, but I wanted a campy and loose feel to the work, and it managed to do that for me.

I did end up with some clouding and an internal crack that I was not happy with. The clouding would have required me to completely strip all of the enamel and start again. I originally had been trying to have an outer border of cloisonnae wire. That didn't work well, so I pulled it, but it clouded some small parts. The crack was probably because I should have put one more coat of counter enamel on the piece. I had to flatten the squares under weight, and since I don't have a cast iron weight it didn't work as well as I had hoped. But it was still a cute project and she can expand it with additional recipies of her own, I can give her some expansion posts for the binder screws. Tomorrow - exploring Sharon's gift, Part 1.