Ma Cobb’s Joint Liniment

I’ve been wrestling, recently, with a pair of conundrums.

The first is the Big Damn Crafters September Challenge, that being Jayne:

Maybe you want to try your hand at a Jayne hat since you’ve never made one. Or maybe you’re gonna make something else that Ma Cobb may have sent her baby boy at some point in his adventures (maybe a gun cozy?). Or maybe you can come up with something that would have caught Jayne’s eye in a market place.

Jayne don’t wear jewelry. Jayne’s mom wouldn’t send him jewelry. I can’t even see Jayne stopping in a marketplace to buy his mother some jewelry. And I can’t knit, so the Jayne Hat was right out.

I had no idea what to do, and was considering bailing on the challenge entirely.

The second was what to call my joint rub. I thought about plain Joint Rub or Arthritis Rub or something but almost everything else has these clever little names, and now I’m stuck with them. Tim thought up Olde Tyme Liniment and I gave that some thought, but it just didn’t seem right. Something liniment…Old Fashioned Liniment…Grandmother’s Recipe Liniment…

Ma Cobb’s Liniment…

I about had to pull over, it was so brilliant.

So today I finally put it together. A grapeseed oil base with a selection of things to ease joint pain — black pepper essential oil, eucalyptus essential oil, rosemary essential oil, lemon essential oil — plus a generous dollop of menthol crystals.

A side note: When opening a previously-sealed bag of menthol crystals, do not stick your nose in for a good hearty whiff.

Not Wise.

But my sinuses are clear now. Heck, I think my drains are clear.

Ma Cobb says, give it a try!

Big Damn Crafters’ Big Damn Challenge

Another piece inspired by Firefly, this one by the necklace Inara’s wearing during the duel at the end of the episode Shindig.

I went about this as if I were researching a piece for the SCA. First I looked at the originals:

Those were the best shots I could find on Can’t Take the Sky From Me, one of the best places I’ve found for Firefly screencaps and an all-around great site for Firefly fans. Not a lot to work with for the actual beads, but you can get a good idea of the general layout of the piece itself.

My choice of beads was dictated partly by my feel for Inara’s fashion preferences in general and partly by which beads I actually had available. She wears a lot of purple and in fact you can see amethyst used in other pieces of hers, and I had some really awesome amethyst around so that was an easy choice. The smaller quartz beads I used as separators mostly because I had them available and they were unobtrusive enough that they didn’t look wrong.

When all you’ve got to work with is a pair of pretty blurry photos, sometimes ‘not wrong’ is about as close as you can get.

The hard part was the bells. I’m not really sure that’s what they are in the original though after a lot of close examination they sure looked like it. Listening carefully to the scene in which she wears the piece I don’t hear any bells, but then I wouldn’t have, unless they were a part of the plot.

The bells I used aren’t actually shaped like the originals (if that’s indeed what they are) — the ones on Inara’s necklace appear to be acorn-shaped, whereas mine have a ring at the top. A tiny cutout barely visible in one of them, though, tells me that bells are as good a guess as any. And they really do look good in the finished piece.

…I think I did okay, don’t you?

Yes, that’s me wearing it. I did also get a shot on the stand, but I felt that I needed a picture of it being worn to really get the full effect.

I’m awfully pleased with how it came out. The beads I had were perfect and I do like how they look with the bells. The bells chime gently when you move, not obtrusive at all. I’m sure it’d get loud if you were doing jumping jacks, but who’d do jumping jacks in a piece like this?

The one thing I changed was partly a mistake, partly deliberate. In one of the shots it looked like the center drop had only three beads, like the two on either side of it, and that the hang on the necklace made it look a little longer. When I looked at the other photo I realized that that wasn’t the case — the original has four beads there, not three — but I’d have been short a bead if I’d made the center drop longer and I wanted to use the 10mm amethyst along the main part of the necklace as well, at least in the front.

I did use smaller amethyst beads for the rest of the necklace. You can’t see that part in any of the shots I’ve seen of the original, and it makes sense that smaller, less valuable beads would have been used there, where they’re less visible anyway.

I’ll admit I’m completely smug about this piece. It took a long time, between researching the original, planning out the layout, and assembly. But, if I may say this about a piece of mine, it looks good. Damn good.

Also, kitten.

Big Damn Crafters Challenge: Ice Planet

I recently joined the Big Damn Crafters, an Etsy Street Team dedicated to the sadly-cancelled TV show Firefly. I shan’t try to explain Firefly here; either you get it or you don’t, and if you don’t, there’s nothing for it but to watch the thing.

The July challenge centered around a quote from one of the episodes —

“My food is problematic.”
“Girl’s a mind reading genius, can’t figure out how to eat an ice planet.”

An ice planet, it turns out, is a ball of ice cream on a string. I have to admit I’d find it problematic as well.

In any case, I figured I’d enter the thing, and the place to start was, for once, pretty obvious.

I got most of the stones in this necklace from another that I’d picked up a while ago, so this one’s an exercise in recycling as well. The big focal bead, a beautiful piece of rutilated quartz, made a perfect ice planet.

The quartz chips on the same necklace looked pretty icy to me, so I figured I’d use those as well (the original piece also had turquoise and amethyst, which I saved for another piece; about which more later). But it needed more, so I went digging.

I’d bought some glittery glass beads with the thought of making kids’ jewelry from them (which I still haven’t accomplished, alas). They looked icy and ice-cream-ey (or at least sherbet-ey) and it turned out they were just perfect.

I even had a couple of beads left to make matching earrings. :)

It’s a short necklace, almost a choker at 17 inches. I like how it hangs and how it feels — it’s heaver than I usually wear. In fact, this piece stretched me a lot — I don’t usually use beads as bright as the glass, and I don’t use chips at all. Or I didn’t anyway; I think I’m going to start!

All in all I’m pretty pleased with it. I’ll let you know if I win!