This past weekend we were in Colonial Williamsburg for Art on the Square.  I got the dates of the show mixed up and ended up booking a non-refundable hotel room for an extra night, so we ended up tacking on a mini-vaction which allowed us to spend some time exploring The Revolutionary City.  In addition to historic buildings and reenactments there are tons of artisans working with colonial tools and materials to visit.  Obviously I didn't want to miss the silversmith.  I was most blown away by how little the tools have changed in the last 250 years.  With the exception of the pewter cup, the jewelers bench looked much the same as mine does.  And, as I was pleased to discover, equally messy.  The main difference between colonial era and modern silversmithing lies in the soldering process, which was either done in a furnace or with a lung powered blow pipe as opposed to a gas powered torch.  While they were not demonstrating that technique at the time the jeweler was nice enough to show me the pipe and lamp and to explain the technique to me.  I have a whole new appreciation for my beloved torch!

Its been a crazy late spring/ early summer.  Lots of shows, from Maryland to Georgia, inside warehouses, churches, old market buildings, outside during insane thunderstorms, flood watches as well as lovely sunny and unseasonably cool days.   I've had the opportunity to participate in several new shows this year and got to do a bit of traveling, Atlanta, Baltimore (twice! once by train, once by car with a mini detour to Washington DC) and to Asheville, NC where we stayed in a lovely mountain cabin (complete with an outdoor hot tub!).  You can find photos from my adventures below and more on Tumblr.

In addition to all the shows, Metamorphosis underwent some structural changes when my husband, Jackey, officially came on board back in May.  He has been handling packing and shipping since January, but is now a full time part of the company.  He's been experimenting with some new techniques (etching & leather work) and we have been brainstorming on some men's designs that we hope to debut in the fall.  We also updated our booth display and gave the outside of the studio a facelift with a fresh coat of paint, chalkboard wall and display cases.

You can now find Metamorposis on the west coast at the lovely Doe Bay Resort in Washington state and at our newest locations in the Triangle, Zola Craft Gallery in Durham and Blue Sky Pilates in Cary.  New pieces recently arrived in several other retailers, Stitch and Design Box in Raleigh and Foundry in Asheville.

after a long weekend of back to back shows and driving i stopped in petersburg, va on the way home to walk around and wake up.  i'm glad i did because the light was amazing and there were so many interesting old buildings to photograph.