New Items In The Shop

Well, after wreaking havoc here for a few weeks, daughter Lisa is now winging her way back to the Bahamas but not before infecting her mother with a new passion- making bowls from clothes line cord! She is experimenting with different shapes and sizes and we came back from Halifax yesterday with about 5 miles of the stuff!
Here's a pic of some of the newest items.

This picture features three of the bowls along with two small paintings Vickie recently finished.
Also in the picture are the following:
Daughter Sandra's newest Mitchell Brook creations-a "Resatchel"- the perfect tote for you and the environment. Totally made from beautiful recycled fabric, it folds small enough to take anywhere but is large enough to hold all your stuff. She is also making the personalized leather coffee cup holder seen in the lower right hand corner. They are really something to see!
Also in the photo is a sterling silver ring I made using a piece of mookaite, a jasper from Australia, and a sampling of Vickie's latest knitting patterns.
The shop has also been totally restocked with Lisa's latest hand dyed yarn so if your travels take you to "The Neck" come by and say hi and pick up your free tumbled rock.
And if you have a few minutes, I'll show you what a professional lapidary shop looks like.

Latest output from the Rock Lab

OK, so I haven't posted for a bit but it has been a little hectic around here. We had visitors from Vancouver Island and a few days later daughter Lisa arrived. Then daughter Sandra joined us for a few days along with Lisa's daughter Sydney and Sandra's son Erik.
Are you getting all this?
As well, the tourist traffic has picked up so I have been busy selling.
But since I have a fair bit of finished local stone, I thought I'd do something with a few beautiful slabs Vickie brought back from out west. So first she defined shapes on the slabs that she thought were the most interesting and then I cut them out, ground them to their final shape and polished them and here are the results. The first pic is a group of cabs made from an Australian stone called Mookaite that my Aussie friend Ted brought me on one of his visits. He was actually born in Montreal but lives there permanently now.

This stone is a very hard type of Jasper and because of that, polishes beautifully, showing amazing colour and patterning.
The next lot is cut from a slab of petrified wood brought to me from my friend Glenn Cook from Arizona. It too is extremely hard and takes a great polish that highlights the amazing organic patterning.

Vickie was in Kelowna last year and visited Black Mountain Artisans owned by the Rembrandt of lapidary machine restoration, Carey Sirhan. You should really check out his restored machines that are truly works of art. In any event, he parted with two treasures. The first is a gorgeous specimen of Picasso Jasper (which is actually a form of limestone), a stone that gets its name from its striking patterning.

She also brought back a small slab of a rare commodity called Biggs Jasper, found at Biggs Creek. This stone started life as a volcanic mud that cooled on the surface of one lava flow and was soon covered by another. These stones are truly beautiful and rare and are going to make some spectacular pieces!

They actually look more like mahogany than stone.
And finally, I finished a few more local pieces and a nice moss agate to round out the lot.

So now it's time to let the wheels cool off and clean the place up, making sure to carefully collect the sludge so Vickie can make more paint! I certainly have an interesting winter ahead of me!
When finished, these pieces will be available in the store or on line at the Seawall Fibres web site but if a particular piece "speaks to you" let me know and if it is still available, I would be happy to do something custom for you.
Cheers!