Crop Circles

I love crop circles -- no, not because of aliens, but rather for the opposite reason. Crop circles are wonderful expressions of the joy and playfulness of humans making art in the most unexpected places and ways. Just think about people sneaking out under cover of darkness with planks and ropes into a field, using stone-age technology to make designs that are intentionally full of all kinds of symbolism, a wonderful combination of art and a prank. You just have to love it. But the best thing about crop circles is that the designs have a sense of geometric beauty that is exactly what I love.

A couple months ago I ran across a photo of a crop circle representing a jellyfish. I saved it for inspiration, intending to work it into a pendant. Earlier this week I decided to do a trial run of the techniques I was planning to use, and these earrings are the result.


Technical details: Core wire is 19g half hard sterling woven with 28g sterling and embellished with 2mm sterling beads. Each earring uses 10 inches of core wire (not including the earwire), about 5 feet of weaving wire and about 37 or 38 beads. The weaving is a herringbone variation that both fills the gap and holds the couched beads in place. By using 3 wraps on the inner ring and one bead plus two wraps on the outer ring, I was able to get the weaving to radiate the way I wanted. The outer circle including beads is just about 1 1/2 inches or 38mm diameter. I mounted them on the latch-back earwires I've been using. They are dramatic, but not heavy either physically or visually.

I know I always seem to be saying I'm happy with my work, but this time, I guess I'd have to say I'm ecstatic. I love these earrings, I love the technique, I loved making them, I love the way they turned out. I will probably make another pair almost right away so I can have some to keep and some to sell, because I think these are definitely salable. I also have ideas for a bunch of variations -- a bead or dangle in place of the inner coil or colored beads or tiny crystals for the edging, perhaps.

Because I'm traveling next week, I'm planning to start next week's Year of Jewelry project a tad early. I do plan to work on jewelry while visiting my sister, weaving wire while she knits, but I'm not pushing myself to finish any big project during that time. We may well decide to sit and drink coffee with idle hands, and that would be wonderful, too. Meanwhile, please do go look at the Year of Jewelry blog. There are really wonderful things being posted all the time.

Before I go this week, I want to give special props to Augie, my wonderful in-house engineer (also beloved husband of many years) who restored my little pink netbook to health after a nasty hard-drive crash. We think that there was some kind of power anomaly overnight that messed up several electronic devices, and I had been lazy enough to leave the computer plugged in to the charger. The next day when I went to turn it on, it couldn't even find Windows. He did the internet research to learn all the little ins and outs of restoring Acer netbooks from crashes, and was able to fix it much more quickly than either of us expected. I lost my data, but all of it was backed up or out in the cloud, so it's just a matter of gathering things up and putting them back in convenient places. Backup is your friend. Also, Augie is awesome, even if there is no extra charge for awesomeness.

Online in Pink

I said that as soon as I was able to get online with the little computer I'd post a review of sorts. I am now online and here it is. Bear in mind I've only had the computer about a week, so I haven't had a chance to try out every little thing it can do, but I've tried out a lot of things and it has impressed me in every case.

The computer is an Acer Aspire in the 8.9" size with the 6 cell battery. It is really small and lightweight even with the large battery. I'd say that more than 6 hours of battery life (yes, I tested that right away) is worth the small increase in weight. It will still fit comfortably into my purse or any of the totes or briefcases I might want to use.

For all its small size, however, the screen is really easy to read and look at. I've discovered that it makes an outstanding PDF reader, both for stories and articles and for tutorials. Imagine being able to open a jewelry tutorial, set it beside your lapdesk, and go to work without having to print it out. No piles of paper, no pages to get messed up, no losing your place, it's all right there, easily navigated and ready whenever you need it.

The keyboard is small, too, and I am having a bit of a learning curve getting to the point that I'm not tripping over my own fingers. However, I think that a few more days of typing on this machine will be enough to take care of that. I'm already noticing an improvement.

The big challenge for me is the trackpad. Again, it's a matter of lack of experience. Although I used a laptop extensively when I was working, I nearly always used a mouse, so I don't have much practice using the touchpad. From other reviews I have read, that may be a blessing since I understand that the Aspire touchpad is set up a bit differently from the standard. In any case, I'm also improving at that, and don't think it will be a problem for long.

Although it came preloaded with a trial of Microsoft Office and of course with Internet Explorer, I loaded Firefox and Openoffice cuz that's the kind of gal I am. Installation was quick and easy. I put all the stuff I won't be using into a folder on the desktop and will uninstall when I'm sure I've made the right decision. I had no difficulty setting FF and OO as the defaults, either. I was also able to import my bookmarks from our other computer. The only very minor inconvenience will be teaching Firefox my passwords, and that will just happen as I use the various sites.

Finally, did I mention that my very own personal netbook is pink? It could be Breast Cancer Awareness pink if I am feeling high-minded, or it could be Pink Cadillac pink if I'm feeling retro, or it could be Barbie pink if I'm feeling all lipstick feminist, or it could be rhodochrosite pink if I'm in jewelry design mode, or it could be Invisible Pink Unicorn pink except for the Invisible and Unicorn parts. Which shall it be today? You'll only know if I tell you.

In fairness, there are a couple features that bother some people. Mainly, it doesn't have a CD/DVD drive. Since I'm not particularly interested in looking at movies on this computer and since I probably won't be installing much more software, that is not a particular drawback for me.

Anyway, I really like this computer a lot. Every little thing about it has performed better than I expected. If you don't mind not being able to play CDs or DVDs without a separate drive, I would give this an unconditional recommendation. Besides, it's pink. Did I mention that?