not just the work blog anymore

Tomorrow’s Instant Gratification Monday will happen in two parts: 2 - 3 p.m. and 6 - 7 p.m. EST. It’s an experiment.

Well.  That was interesting.

I just managed to break my Lindstrom chainnose pliers.

I’ve lost track of how many pairs of cutters I’ve gone through since I first started using Lindstrom tools exclusively three years ago, but that’s because I’m dumb sometimes and keep trying to cut steel with them, so those are my own damn fault.  But this was my original pair of Lindstrom pliers, out of the set I bought when I quit my job four years ago.  Most of my startup money went into that set of tools, actually, and they’ve served me very well — I’ve made over 7000 pieces of jewelry with them.

The break was probably due to a manufacturing flaw, as I was working on a soft copper piece at the time it happened, and I wasn’t exerting anywhere near the sort of force you’d have to apply to break tool steel.  So I’m inquiring with the company I buy my tools from to see if we can get Lindstrom to honor their warranty and have ordered a replacement pair (since a spare pair wouldn’t be a bad idea anyway) and in the meantime I fortunately have a pair of bent chainnose Lindstroms that are a reasonable substitute.  But wow.

By the way, if you happen to be in the market for a pair or three of Lindstroms, Urban Maille has the absolute best prices I’ve ever seen, and they’ve always been fabulously quick to ship my orders.

I am seriously considering placing the following ad on craigslist:

Moderately Obsessive Bead Enthusiast Wanted

Eccentric and disorganized jewelry designer seeks moderately obsessive person to help sort and put away beads. No experience necessary. Must enjoy sorting tiny objects and be good at declining offers of feline assistance. Position is unpaid, but I will be happy to fill your head with vast quantities of random information about gemstones while you work, make you a piece of jewelry, and feed you lunch. 1 - 2 hours per month, ongoing.

Think anybody would actually want to do it?

If you’re in the New England area and would be interested in hosting a Wyrding Studios jewelry party, I’m now booking for the fall. These are NOT your usual product parties — for one thing, I’m the world’s worst salesperson, so I don’t even bother with a sales pitch. If somebody wants to buy something, hey, awesome! Otherwise, I’m happy just to hang out with people, put faces to names, and talk about pretty rocks. They’re also very low-key: I bring my inventory bins and a few cases of materials, and people can either look at pre-made items or poke through raw materials and have me make something custom on the spot. There’s always a drawing for a free shiny, and the hostess gets shiny presents at the end.

I’m willing to go pretty much anywhere in the New England area; if you think you can get 6 - 12 people together, I’ll make the trip. I will also be traveling to NYC sometime this fall, and would love to do a party there, and could also be convinced to go to anywhere in the NYC metro area - New Jersey, Westchester, Connecticut, etc. With a bit of persuading, I could probably also make it to Baltimore and Philadelphia, as we’re overdue for a trip to visit family in Baltimore. Email me (kythryne@wyrdingstudios.com) if you’re interested, and we’ll talk.

Next week’s Instant Gratification Monday (I’ve dropped the “almost” since I’m now photographing stuff as I go and generally manage to ship most of the stuff on Tuesday, which means the only thing faster is getting me to do stuff in person) will happen from 6 - 9 p.m.
Yes, that’s three hours — I wanted to do 6 - 8, but I have a custom appointment at 9, so rather than trying to find something else to do in that spare hour, I decided to just extend the time window this week.