Nigel Incubator-Jones

8:42am: One of my new friends will be away next weekend at, of all wonderful things, a gem and jewelry show. This set me to thinking about my favorite show, the International Gem and Jewelry Show, which takes place in several places around the country- including Massachusetts, which allows me to attend (over the years I have been to three and have purchased everything from faceted peridot beads to necklace displays). I was wondering if I would receive another flyer in the mail, and sure enough, there was one waiting for me this morning. There will be a show in Connecticut in a week or so, and while it is a bit far away, there will also be shows in Massachusetts on the sixth of May and the eighth of July. It would be lovely to attend either one or both, and it would also be lovely to ask my new friends if they would be interested in joining me (which would give me access to the wholesale area). It would be splendid to have some company-especially company that would not tire of looking at gems.

On another note, I am thinking of branching out into very basic silversmithing. I took a class in highschool, and I remember quite a bit of it. I have a list of the tools that I would need, such as sheet metal, solder, one of those new-fangled soldering guns, metal-cutting scissors (much more practical than saws and saw blades, I think) and some sort of tool for drilling holes into metal, and most of these things are available in my catalogs. I have many ideas, and I think that I could very nicely compliment my wirework.