Outside My Comfort Zone

I have been afraid of fire for as long as I can remember. My dad was a volunteer fireman so I was always very aware of fires and the destruction they caused. I grew up back in the day when volunteers did not stay at the firehouse, they would sound a really loud alarm that would bring the firefighters running. Whenever I heard the siren at night, I would have to go look around our house and make sure it was not the one on fire.

The point of all of this, is that for all the years I have been making jewelry, I have been doing strung beads or wireworking, but no soldering. If I could use just a little soldering iron, I would be fine with that, but silver work requires a torch. Last year, I signed up for a class called Cold Forging, which I thought would be hammers on anvils, with no torching. Turns out that the first step of even the cold forging is to torch the metal. The teacher, not knowing my fire issues, asked me to hold the torch while she lit it. I must have turned pale, because my classmates figured out rather quickly that I had an issue. I decided not to be a ninny and did it anyway!

So now, wanting to step up my jewelry game, I have signed up for a silver jewelry class, which involves torches, saws, you name it! It starts this Thursday, and I hope by the time I am done, I will have resolved my issues enough to get my own torch setup that I can use at my house.