Shop Talk: Finding Your Inner Jasper

We had friends visiting for the holidays which always turns into a multi-day, family play date.  No where else have I lived where the notion of a play date is so prevalent.   But here on the East Coast I have quickly come to understand that it is a very scheduled atmosphere, and one where parents feel the need to schedule every waking hour for their child.  Not to mention ensure that their kids are escorted from one location to the next. 


Long gone are the days where we as kids would run between houses, walk ourselves to school or run up to the corner store to pick up milk or loaf of bread for mom.  It just isn't done anymore --- at least not where we are.


While I am still getting used to the notion of a play date, it is so much fun when you can do that not only for your kids, but with the parents of the kids.  That is how it goes when we see our friends from Boston.



Our husbands are happiest playing games, literally and figuratively. The youngest girls have their own variation of games usually involving the 3-Ps: petshop, puffles or penguins.  The older, barely just-turned teenage girls are simply too cool for either. The amazing part of this is everyone has their own partner in crime ... and so my friend and I settle in for a 24-hour extravaganza of 'talk shop swap.' I managed to get a picture of her (behind the camera) and she has the respective one of me (behind the camera). She (Baby Cocktails) designs patterns for knitting, and I design jewelry.  And so there is no end to what we can talk about with our blogs, our respective craft communities (Etsy vs Ravelry) or the use of twitter and facebook ... personal or public.  Riveting I know, so I'll spare you the details and get right to jewelry.   


Baby Cocktails appears to have a love of jasper.  Perhaps un-confessed at this point, but it will dawn on her once she's unpacked the stash I've sent her home with.  The blue imperial jasper (above) was as if I made them with her in mind. I didn't originally, but they were an absolutely perfect fit. The hoops and the stones mirror each other and are going to look amazing with the new grey-blue sweater she's working on.  I'll be sure to post it once complete.  


I LOVE this style of jasper with its complex 'veining' patterns. Imperial jasper is dyed in several colors: blue, green, red, sometimes orange.  The brecciated result is caused by fracturing or breaking in the stone from stress and/or shrinkage.  Yes ladies sometimes shrinkage can be a beautiful thing.  The stone lovers in the bunch will tell you that jasper is used as a protective stone and will align your chakras to get just the right balance of yin and yang energies.  It protects against evil spirits and any venomous snake and spider bites.  So Baby Cocktails should be all set as she renovates the house!  For that story you'll have to check out her blog.  


And just when you thought I was done talking about jasper, enter the ocean variety.  Baby Cocktails may just be finding her inner jasper, but I've long known mine runs deep.  



As we were checking out a friend's blog on how to ensure your knitting is Fit-To-Flatter we decided (to be fair it was mostly me not we) that a nice pop of color with some well selected jewelry would add to the look of people's knitting --- without distracting from it of course. Wink, wink, shameless plug for my jewelry to adorn my friends in the knitting world. I often say when people ask me why I'm so prolific with jewelry it is "because I don't knit."  No one ever asks a knitter why they knit. Or why they are forever pulling out a project from their bag to knit and talk. So for Fit-To-Flatter the selection included yet another jasper: ocean. 


This variation is found on the intertidal shores of northeast Madagascar, and apparently can only be mined at low tide.  The colors vary widely, but what make this one unique are the multi-color patterns typically in circles or even polka dots.  I prefer more of a wavy pattern as seen (above).  I'll be looking for how Fit-To-Flatter ends up using this pair, and will be sure to post.  Wink, wink more shameless plugs.