More PMC Lessons with Kate

Kate McKinnon is teaching classes at Beadfx all this week. I'm signed up for two days of the five. Today was making various components out of PMC (precious metal clay) and fine silver. We all made earring hooks, fused jump rings, head pins, toggle bars, various connecting bits and pieces like bails and bits of wire with holes on the top and stuff like that there.

Here's a picture of Kate fusing some wire:

and here is a picture of the various components she and I made today, as they sat on the kiln shelf drying (Kate's stuff on the top, mine on the bottom):

Like most things, PMC takes practice to make it right. My first lesson was last May when I took a lesson from Kate for the first time. I did some more at the end of July and then again in January of this year. Other than that, I haven't done any w0rk with it and it's amazing what I forget and what I remember from time to time. Each time, I say to myself that I really ought to do more of it and then a few months goes by and suddenly it's time for another class and I haven't done anything in the meantime. Oh well, life is like that sometimes. I do enjoy it when I do it, but I definitely think I'd do better at it if I spent a little more time on it!

Back for day 2 tomorrow. We'll be making chains.