Fall Season and Work In Progress Pictures

I can't believe it's fall season already. Well, it's kind of hard to think of fall when it's still hot summer weather here in Los Angeles. This week has been in the mid 90th temperatures here. Glad I have air condition in the studio. Otherwise I would have been miserable. The things I finished this week while trying to stay cool:

Most time went into finishing the 3 ring bridal set with a 8.5mm moissanite half bezel ring with moissanite Wave eternity rings stacked next to it. But I also got  a Fold Soiltaire ring done with a pink tourmaline (middle) and one with a whitish Montana sapphire (left).

I did post some progress shots on Instagram during the week.

Here the 3 ring bridal set after a late afternoon stone setting push:

The 16 small moissanites were set in the palladium eternity rings, but the solitaire ring still needed the monster size stone. That was left for the next day as I was starting to feel tired and lost focus. There are only so many stones I can set in a day. Losing focus can be quite expensive. That's the time when chances are high to screw up and damaging the stone or the setting. I kind of have the rule to not set stones after 7pm, though I do occasionally break that rule when I feel poised to finish something before going home.

To get me though stone setting sessions there is usually some tea and  chocolate involved while getting entertained by music and audiobooks. If I am doing a really fiddly task I have to turn all distractions off. Silence helps to focus.

View of the bench during stone setting

I also did a casting run earlier this week before it got really hot. The 2 other rings that were finished by Friday were in this casting run.

Successful cast rings in sterling silver and silver/palladium alloy.

There are a view more rings in this batch that will be finished next week. My work is cut out for me for the coming days before I start carving waxes again for new orders. Temperatures are supposed to drop down into the 80th in the next days. Not exactly chilly fall weather. But that's as good as it gets when living in Southern California.

A visit to the local farmers markets surely looks fall inspired and made my week a bit more colorful and healthy.

I put some of those purple/red flowers in my studio. For lack of an actual vase I had to fill up one of my tumbler rubber barrels with water, a new never used one. They did survive the entire week and did not seem to mind the unconventional vase at all.