Spring hath sprung

Early last spring we planted a lot of flowers in the front lawn. Many were non-native ornamentals -- hyacinths, tulips, Frittilaria, etc. -- but we bought and planted about a hundred corms of spring beauty, which is native throughout the eastern US. None of them came up last spring, and this spring I was starting to fear that the squirrels had eaten them all, but some of them showed their faces last week.

Casting, continued

Following on this post...

Finished making a three-part silicone mold of the button. I hadn't applied enough release compound (aka Vaseline) to each mold piece before pouring the next one, so it took some work to get them apart, and they tore a bit, but I did get them apart, extricated the master button, added a sprue and an air vent (coming off the back loop, to ensure that pewter gets into the back loop) by hand, and melted and poured some pewter. The first pour didn't even get from the sprue into the button, so I enlarged the sprue and the air vent, re-melted it, and poured again. This time the button is mostly complete, even the loop on the back. There's a glitch on the front center of the button,
( Cut for pictures )

Continued a few days later here.