Saturday's Market & Loafing

It's really nice when we can take the whole weekend off . . . We both had a lazy morning and we got moving a litttle later than we meant to. But we did make it to our favorite farmers' tailgate market at UNCA again Saturday!

Because it's fun, here are some photos of our shopping loot! (Grass-fed beef bratwurst isn't pictured, it's in the freezer for now!)

Our glass platter loaded down with new produce. Cukes, eggplant, tomatoes, bell pepper, candy red onions, and more garlic!

Fresh young lettuces for salads and BLTs. The bowl was a gift from our potter friend Gay Brown.

We had BLTs for lunch both Saturday and Sunday. Only the second time this season we've indulged. And they were wonderful!

Pat's bread board, once again loaded down. Clockwise from the top: Pre-sliced Anadama bread from Wake Robin Farm Organic Breads (as I said, we were later than we had meant to be, and most of the breads were gone by the time we got to the MArket!), a taste of summer sunshine fresh local black berries (the birds have eaten all of ours!), sweet heirloom red Italian peppers, a mild goat cheese (that was gone by Monday!), and fresh arugala and egg pasta from Pasta Momma.

My treasure trove! An half-pound of fresh oyster mushrooms!!! Half of them were sauteed with butte and olive oil and some heirloom sweet Italian red peppers and served over the pasta Saturday. The other half was for Sunday night's dinner! They have an incredible delicate flavor that is easily overpowered.

The plate was made by Hamilton Williams in 1997; Tim Jacks gave us a pair of them.



Green beans! These are not Blue Lake beans, I've forgotten just what variety they are. No matter, they are delicious raw and I'm looking forward to using some of them Monday night!


Casserole by and a gift from Gay Brown.






I'm not sure if Inky is wanting to help with the photography or if he is interested in sampling the cheese!

Custom work and bezels!

It was a busy week for us. We had some distractions, but we still managed to get a lot done. Maybe not as much on our own work as we would have liked, but it was a good week for us. We'll get everything done in plenty of time.

Besides our normal work, Pat did get to work on making the bezels for the stones that we are using for this run. Here she is soldering bezels together. Each one has to be made individually since each stone is a different size and shape.

This is the sketch our clients gave us to work from. Our job is to interpret their vision and make it real for them so they will have two unique and wonderful wedding bands!

Here are the two custom wedding band waxes that Pat carved for our clients! After their approval the waxes go to Tom for spruing, investing and the actual casting.

Once they are cast and cleaned the heads will be soldered on and then the stones will be mounted. Then our clients will have their wedding bands in tie for their marriage!

Tom using one of his favorite tools, our two-station electric wax pen, as he begins to sprue the two custom waxes before investing them.

(These photos were taken last Friday.)