silver silk crepe

I’m off to LA for a couple of days, so I’m posting early!
I’ve had a good week in the studio with new work up on etsy (like these crinkled crepe-like recycled sterling silver circles). Want to see more? Check out brendesign at flickr, where all available styles are carefully arranged in complete randomness.

cheese princess

This weekend I joined the ranks of an unusual group of DIYers. I made cheese.

I didn’t have to pour through ancient bovine manuals searching for instructions, either. My cheese kit arrived at my door, courtesy of Ricki the Cheese Queen (yes, that is now she refers to herself) in a bright pink and yellow box, with perky graphics, and enough supplies to make 30 pounds of cheese. Now, really, I ask you, what more could a girl need?!

The 30-minute instructions were simple; mix milk with citric acid, heat, add rennet (which is either cow stomach or vegetable-based. I chose the veg option), and leave it alone. At this point the curd (solid white mush, or, ricotta cheese) separates from the whey (clear water-like stuff), the curd is then drained, re-heated, and kneaded until it stretches its way into cheese.

With fantasies of fresh mozzarella goodness, I was off to the store for one gallon of pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) organic milk. Milk is treated in several different manners which are incredibly boring to read about, but apparently quite necessary to understand when making certain kinds of cheese. Milk that has been treated at very high temperatures (hence the ultra) will not make mozzarella. Period. That should make milk-intended-for-cheese purchases difficult enough, but dairy companies are not required to accurately detail how the milk has been processed, so even though the first gallon of organic milk I carried home was labeled with the p not u-p word, it was interested in only going half of the way to mozzarella heaven. Ricotta was all it wanted to be, poor thing.

So, I journey back to the store and bring home another dairy company's promise of p not u-p milk, repeat the recipe, and end up with mushy curds again.

Containers of ricotta are crowding the refrigerator, and I slouch on the couch, defeated by cheese, and question our ability to consume 2 pounds of ricotta in the next week. Then I despair at the logic of attempting to consume 2 pounds of ricotta in one week.

My ever-internet resourceful husband is online in an instant, and in a few minutes finds one, just one, local organic dairy that distinguishes between the regular and ultra. Off we go to the one, just one, store 20 minutes away that carries gallon jugs of Organic Valley’s pasteurized whole milk, and back we come, milk in one hand and lasagna noodles (for the ricotta) in the other.

Five hours and three gallons of milk later, I have curd that has separated from the whey, and when reheated, It. Begins. To. Stretch! We ate, very late, my husband’s homemade pizza dough with my very first mozzarella. I know I am worlds away from Ricki’s Cheese Queen status, but perhaps with a few more tries I’ll vie for the Cheese Princess title.

seed, soil, and string

Absolutely nothing was accomplished in the studio this weekend. Instead, I spent my time during the little peeks of sunshine playing in the soil. It was lovely.

I feel I must apologize to my Midwest friends and family who will read this and hate me as today they are expecting a couple of inches of snow, but, here in southern Oregon it is time for planting lettuce, spinach, onions, and carrots.

Even with a short west coast winter I was sill climbing the walls this year. My 80 year-old gardening neighbor agreed with the claw-mark inducing weather we've had, as he handed advice and a few extra garlic cloves over the fence, and checked on the 'Egyptian walking onions' he gave me last fall. I am always excited about any plant that walks or flings itself into unexpected an unplanned places. I'd much rather weed volunteer dill seedlings than grass, and I believe that our dear Mother N. has quite an excellent sense of vegetative composition. I'm looking forward to watching these onions walk like an Egyptian.

With rows marked and watered, I then brought my dirty fingernails inside, and started my brandywine and roma tomatoes, tomatillos, oregano (I could not find a single organic oregano plant to put in my garden last year. Oregonians don't like oregano!?), and leeks.

Yes, these are toilet paper rolls. Gayla Trail details how to make these perfect seed starter homes in her You Grow Girl blog. I cut my rolls in half, as all of my tomatoes will be replanted into larger containers before they venture beyond my living room window and into the Great Outdoor Garden, the dream every tomato seed.

repeat after me: r, r, r

My husband is having an affair with craig and his list.
He faithfully visits The List every morning, coaxing computer keys to reveal the secrets of our neighbors’ garages, searching for the wants and never-knew-we-neededs. I must admit that I have benefited from this reuse relationship, most recently by the find of a metal shelving unit for my studio space (above). Not that I’ll be any more organized, but now I won’t have to dig through boxes searching for tools, and I am quite excited about that.

In the interest of green self-education, I’m reading The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman, and finished an article, The Last Empire, by Jacques Leslie, in Mother Jones. Both works discuss the impact of our consumer machine. Fishman illustrates how it is created and sustained by following the growth of the world’s big box monster, and Leslie digs into the consequences of our unquenchable consumption on China’s environment. Both works provide a case for an educated consumer base, and now have me guiltily questioning and accessing all my recent purchases, from new siding for the house, to my most recent curly hair care product.

While I am envious of the dedication of groups like The Compact, who refrain from new purchases for an entire calendar year, I seem unable to commit to limiting my consumption that drastically, possibly because I work in retail, and most certainly because my little jewelry business is based on the temptation of new (albeit recycled metal) earrings. However, I do believe that all businesses, economies, cultures, and environments would benefit if the overheard and underused Three R mantra could be dug out of our closets, dusted off, and practiced in order: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

So, in my home and for brendesign, I’ll be pushing to reduce my consumption past the recycled metal, to produce limited samples, to use only recycled or reused paper and materials for packaging, and reuse or recycle all metal and paper scraps. I’m also encouraging my husband’s romance with online junk trading, and will therefore have to bravely argue against the acquisition of all the lonely motorcycles, trailers, and mechanical tools of southern Oregon….but, free chickens, now that would be great fun!

spring circles

Today, spring line sheets are on the to-do, so I'm sharing a sneak peak of a few new pieces I'll have up at etsy and (hopefully) in a few shops in the next couple of months. Circles still dominate my designs. I love circles! Big and round and complete, they are the perfect symbol to attach to our struggling selves as we search for the whole within us.

The Full Moon series (above) is just that, full, round recycled sterling silver circles with a feel-good reflective brushed surface.

A bit of texture is added to the brushed silver in the Sewn series, with a recycled 14k gold wire stitched in an arc across the piece. I'm thinking about adding another element, maybe a gold or oxidized silver disk, so that the gold 'thread' holds the two pieces together...

The Dream series adds dimension to the circle theme, with flat recycled sterling silver circles hand hammered into bowls, oxidized, and edges buffed to a shine, leaving smoky centers.

recycled mountains

Before any pieces were hammered or photographs taken, a goal was made for brendesign that all materials used would be recycled. Two works greatly influenced this choice (as previously I had tinkered with what the local bead stores had to offer, and the metal origins were not discussed). The first is a fantastic indie documentary, The Devil's Miner, which follows 14 year old Basilio Vargas as he works in the Bolivian silver mines to support is family, and the Tio, or devil, that determines the fate of the miners. The second is In Search of King Solomon's Mines, a book by Tahir Shah, which details his adventure into Ethiopia as he searched for the mines of biblical fame, and the environmental and cultural devastation created by the demand for mass quantities of gold.

Our current cultural trend to consider the origins of our objects of consumption is an exciting and beneficial practice. We have become quite familiar with the exploitation of natural resources that lead to pollution, poverty, and war. Asking questions is the most positive and progressive action we can offer as we attempt to redefine our needs and wants.

the handmade guerrilla

I do not knit.
I've attempted, but the closest I've come is wire crochet.
Also, I have yet to participate in a guerilla group.
Admittedly, I am envious of anyone who can combine the two.

Last week's Bryant Park Project's Knitting Guerrillas Rock the Yarn, covered Sabrina Gschwandtner's new book KnitKnit about the expanding world of knitters, the groups, materials, and messages. I was most interested in a group called Knitta, who supply their city and various spots on earth with knitted graffiti. Hand knit cozies circle accessible spaces from telephone poles to a brick on the Great Wall of China. Like the guerilla flowerpot gardeners in Tokyo, the Knittas are altering their urban landscape and culture, returning man-made to handmade.