In case you were wondering how I get any jewelry making done with a baby in the house, well, most of the time I don’t. Remember my post about my traveling metal studio? I still do most of the metalwork at my parents’ house, and most of the beading and wirework during naptime or if I happen to have a little energy left after he goes to bed.

But yesterday, my husband was home in the morning, so I thought I’d sneak outside and make some headpins. I need about 500 24-gauge fine silver headpins to finish the pieces I started on Friday while visiting my parents, and I was completely out.

Now, since I don’t normally do metalwork at home, I don’t really have a studio or anything set up. My makeshift workspace is a broken piece of marble on top of an old chest-high table. It’s in the back yard.

You may or may not know that California is in the middle of a major drought right now. It’s hardly rained at all this year. Until last week, that is. It’s been showers on and off for about a week.

It seemed like there was a break in the rain, so I grabbed my torch, the pre-cut pieces of wire for my head pins, and ran out to my “workbench” to get started. It was windy, and kind of misting, but I figured if I worked fast I could finish before the rain really started coming down.

Well.

Torches don’t work so well in the wind and rain. I managed to get a few headpins made, but by then the rain was really coming down, and the flame of my torch was pretty much sideways. I was getting soaked, the silver wasn’t melting….I had to admit defeat and go back inside.

I set my unfinished headpins down on the kitchen table and picked up the baby, who was crying for me. He grabbed the little card that my wires were on and flung it – 3 inch long pieces of wire went everywhere. It took me about ten minutes to find them all.

At least I did get a few headpins done before the downpour started, so I might be able to finish a pendant when my son goes down for his morning nap…..