Not the best farmer's market ever, or how to turn a negative into a positive

Well Drat. It rained so hard this morning at Downtown Farmer's Market they actually canceled it. In the 6 years I've participated in farmer's Market, they have canceled it exactly once before to my knowledge. That was in 2008, when the downtown area was flooded by the Des Moines river. I got up at 5am in the morning, got to the market at 6am, set up from 6-7ish while being rained on, and then about 720am it started to REALLY rain. And it got Windy. Jerry and I spent the next 1-1/2 hours holding the tent town, and catching jewelry and my inventory got flung around by the wind. it's amazing how aerodynamic jewelry displays are. Those suckers can really rack up the hang time! Then the police came by and said to pack it up.. they were closing the market early because of the lighting. Did I mention the lighting?

Packing up early is all well and good.. except despite our best efforts we were soaked, my jewelry was soaked, the displays where soaked. Jerry and I were standing in about 4 inches of water ( I wrung water out of my soaks when we got home.. ugh!) as the street drains couldn't keep up with the water level.

So we got home wet, and discouraged. We brought in all the displays and jewelry and such and started to clean up and dry everything. Right now all my jewelry displays are laid out on my dining room table drying. Most jewelry displays are thick cardboard with something over them. I think a couple are past redemption, but most of them are drying nicely. My jewelry is spread out all over my studio floor, drying out. It's all OK, my jewelry is durable, but the hang tags are not. I'll probably spend most of the following week re-tagging most everything.

Worst issue is my tools. I always carry a nice selection of my tools, and they got soaked also. Tools and moisture do not mix.

Since I needed to dry them out I decided to make the best of a damp situation, and do a full on out tool maintenance session.

Most pliers will rust over time, and you sand down the rust, and then oil them to protect the metal. it's a good idea-- at least if you are a jewelry artist -- to periodically sand/steel wool your tools and then oil them. Especially as a wire wrapper, most of my pliers I've lightly sanded the edges down anyway, to reduce tool marks.

So now all of my pliers and a few of my hammers have been sanded down ( I use 1000 grit for tool cleaning, unless one of them is really bad) and had the joints oiled. Then I rub oil over all the metal surfaces of the tools, and then wipe most of it back off.

The 2 pendants pictured are fused glass and sterling wire.