Summer Comes to Digby Neck

As usual, spring lasted about a week and summer is now upon us. All the signs are there- apple trees in full blossom, warmer temperatures, grass growing like crazy, sunsets at around 10 PM and lots of funny licence plates in town!
Recently, we have greeted visitors from China, Germany, Australia and even Weymouth (local joke)!
My new Hi-Tech saw is here and I have done some cutting and when I get the block of needed time and an assistant to handle the camera, I'll do a blog post on it.
But for now, I want to show you a few pieces I have been working on. Since I have an ample supply of copper wire in all gauges, I decided to see if I could make rings using just the wire. My first piece was a little gem of petrified wood (non-local) that I set using 14 gauge wire. That's a quite heavy, stiff wire but the results were pretty good:

In fact, they were too good because my "model" refused to give it back!
I then shifted to a 15 gauge, using a nice piece of Mexican Crazy Lace and it also worked well.

So I am going to work on maybe trying a thinner gauge and doing some local stones.
The typical moss agate found on Digby Neck is a golden brown colour and this piece I just finished is a good example of that. But what makes this stone special is the matrix.

Normally, the matrix is clear (quartz or smoky quartz) but I have looked at this in several different lights and the "clear" areas are definitely lavender so I am thinking probably amethyst.

 This is the first time I have ever encountered this here so I will wait until daughter Lisa arrives and teaches me how to make a nice silver bezel for this one.
I am now on my 8th batch of tumbled stones so there are some great new pieces in the free box for you to take home when you visit.
Hope to see you soon!