Solar Hot Water Photos, Beaded Ornaments

Here are the promised pictures of my solar water heater. The collecting tubes contain water which is heated by the sun and circulated in exchange coils through the water in the 55 gallon tank. There's a small tank in the attic for the water to drain out of the tubes when heat is not needed. That keeps them from freezing at night in the winter. The water is mixed with cold at the outlet to the house to keep the temperature no higher then 130 degrees F. There's a monitor that tells me the temperature at the top of the collectors and the top and bottom of the tank. Cool. It's all working great, although I need to remember to run the dishwasher while the sun is shining. I don't even have the back up heater turned on.

Back to needlework. I've made two beaded flaming chalice ornaments to sell at my church auction in November. The blue one is based on a stained-glass window in our community hall. The other is the most common image used as a symbol of our denomination, Unitarian-Universalism. These are about 3 inches in diameter and are lightly padded. The green back on the yellow one is done in size 15 seed beads. That took a while!