Although it’s supposed to be a calming stone, I’ve always found bloodstone to have a kind of overpowering “in-your-face” energy that’s difficult to deal with.  For the last few weeks, though, I’ve been wearing it while working on my tutorials, and it’s been helpful for keeping my energy levels up and focused.  I love the red spotting on this cab, and the slight yellow cloud overlaying the green.  This was part of a group of cabs I bought when The Nautilus closed 10 years ago.  The Nautilus was *the* place in Toronto to buy rockhounding and lapidary supplies.  Located in the far, far east of the city, I remember it taking an obscenely long time to get there on city transit from where I lived in Little India.  But what a treasure trove!  The owner, Roy MacLeod, was a passionate rockhound and filled his store with all the bits and bobs needed to work with and admire rocks.  Sadly, Roy didn’t live to see the millennium, and the closing of his store left a void that still hasn’t been filled.

In designing the Level II course for Haliburton, I was thinking about what skills would be most useful for the students to learn.  In Level I, they learn the basics:  working with single wires, developing dexterity with tools, etc.  There are very few multi-wire projects.  In Level II all but two of the projects are multi-wire pieces, and the students have to deal with doing steps early on that don’t actually come into full use until much later in the construction. Wire control becomes very important.

One of the things Level II focuses on is settings:  half of the projects deal with some form of stone setting.

I think this is by far the most complex of the projects I’ll be teaching.  Hopefully by the time we get to this point in the course, the students will have enough confidence to tackle it.  If not, it’s easily adapted to something simpler.  I’ll let them decide how energetic they want to be.

This tutorial will be available for purchase and download off my website after I get back from Haliburton.  I’ll post the link when it’s up, along with more photos.