I assure you
that it all started quite innocently... I was browsing on Etsy while looking for some African stone beads. I came
across this interesting bead spindle that had my attention so much I had
to make it one of my favorites. At that point I was so terribly curious, that I
just had to click on the maker's
shop with the sole purpose of seeing what else she makes. By the time I
was finished, I'd favorited another and then another !
Now it was
time to go to bed. I read "Vigilante", a Kindle book
from my new favorite
author and eventually fell asleep. Little did I know that I was going to
dream all night long about those spindles and the process of making my own. I
woke up at 5:30 this morning with the horrible need to make these spindles. Just
one. That's all. Seriously!!
Why do I have
almost four of them now???? I started with a light purple polymer clay and found
a really nice pearl white to put with it; an old donut cutter (I only used the
middle of it.) and I was off. I couldn't just put two whorls in the oven, so I
dug through my collection of polymers and came up with one more light purple
one, copper and pearl amber, and red with pearl light blue.
Take a look for
yourself! Now, I'm off to that nice lady's
Etsy store from Spain to buy a very beautiful spindle that I don't believe
I'd be able to or willing to make myself.
Alas, as with any project, there are pitfalls and do-overs!! The pretty
red and pearl light blue spindle had to be deconstructed because it didn't spin
worth anything. I got 3 seconds spin time out of it, tops.
Soooo, on to taking it all apart. It should have been a simple matter,
but I used Household Welder which is superior glue for securing glass and metal
to each other. It more than does it's job. I was able to twist the whorl apart
from the spindle with a pair of heavy duty pliers, but the bead wouldn't
budge.
I took it all down to my workbench and assembled my tools and went to
work on the very painful task of destroying a pretty glass
bead.
I'll recut some more wire, put it to my grinder, reinsert, glue and
it'll be a finished spindle again!
