Three Years of Blogging

I was just looking back my blog archive and was shocked to see that I have been blogging three years now.  When I first started I couldn’t imagine that I would have much to say.  As I have gotten into it I realize that it can be a place to go and just clear your mind of clutter or things that you are thinking about.  I look back over some of the entries and photos and am amazed and where my journey has taken me.  From fiber arts, to polymer clay, to fusing glass and finally lampwork.  I still love my fabric, I do, some days yearn to get out my log cabin stuff and just make some blocks.  I have a drawer full of 1 ½” strips, every fabric that comes through my studio gets at least one strip cut off of it for the drawer.  I have been making the log cabin blocks by the strip piece method for quite some time, I have over 100 9” blocks made, eventually it will make a great king size quilt for my bed and it will have all the wonderful fabrics of my life.  I will be able to look at some of them and have fond memories of where I got it or how I got it.  I did lots of internet fat quarter swaps in the early days so I have tons of stuff that I just cut up into strips to get rid of.  It may be time to just sit down and make eight blocks for the fun it. 

Then there is the polymer clay, it took over my fiber studio and the huge cutting table so I don’t have room for anything else in there.  I had to move to the basement when I started working with glass.  I still use the studio for staging and creating jewelry but rarely just go in there and play.  As we get into the dog days of summer and the basement is too hot to torch I may just have to step back in history a bit and just sew. 

Enjoy your weekend, whatever you may be into.

Working for a living

I just hate working, but it pays for the art so I just do it.  I can sit here all day and day dream about what I want to do when I get home.  What I want to make when I sit down at the torch.  I have a notebook that I keep with me at work and keep notes about what I want to do, things that I’ve seen online that I want to try and just generally ideas that come to me.  Do I use the notebook when I get down there…..NO!  I never do.  I usually have one or two things that I want to try and never get to anything else.  The time just flies by when I’m sitting at the torch.  Before I know it, four hours has passed and I need to stop. 

I have all of these great ideas during the day at work and then when I get home, get the girls walked and fed I’m too tired to go down there.  I guess I should go down anyway, at least one or two days during the week.  I’m just afraid that I’ll get stupid when I’m tired and “Really” burn myself.  I do enough of that on the weekend when I’m not tired.  

Last Saturday I had the mandrel in my left hand with a bead on it and I turned to the right to get something out of a drawer and forgot where my left hand was.  I was trying to keep the bead warm at the same time and stuck my whole hand in the flame.  I was so made at myself for that one, I jammed my hand into a large glass of soda with ice near by to keep it from burning and kept torching.  When it started burning again I would stick it back in the ice.  Not the first stupid mistake and certainly not the last but one would think that I would learn from my mistakes.   I guess I do, I just keep making different ones. 

Well anyway, just random thought, back to work……ta ta

Journey down the bead road

I've been playing with a new technique that I read about out in Internet land someplace.  Its called the tornado bead.  Really cool effect if one can get it right.  The blue green one was made using a couple of the silver reactive glasses which was reduced and then encased.  I love the colors but I'm still having trouble with the affect.  The yellow one is getting closer.  On the other side of the yellow bead I tried to put a flower on the outside and it is really nasty.  I used another reactive glass that just didn't quite react.  Well, not yet anyway.  I think that when it comes out of the kiln it may lighten up a bit.  Until then, the flower remains hidden....LOL  Use your imagination

Nessie Ice-Effetre Cool Color

I've been trying out a new glass from Effetre lately.  I got it from Frantz Art Glass,   http://frantzartglass.Com/ as a gift.  Apparently they didn't get the full shipment of it so they couldn't sell it, decided to give it as a gift.  It is one of the new Effetre Cool Colors, I sure hope they get more, this is a great glass  It is a striking glass, which means that you have to cool it and then reintroduce it into the flame for the colors to develop.  Beautiful shades of blue in crystalline shapes.  The only problem is that I used the old Luanscha clear and it yellowed when I swiped it on.  I'm going to try a different clear today.  For now, here are yesterday's results.

A new way to blog

I'm testing a new way to blog, by email. According to blogger I can send an
email with photos by email to my blog. If this works I'm going to be
blogging a lot more.

And to test the photo, I add the girls. Aren't they cutties. Piper is a
wonderful Westie and Sadie is a tenacious Scottschund.

The lampwork journey continued

I haven't posted any new beads in quite awhile. I've been so busy with my Etsy site and promoting it that I completely forgot. I can't decide whether I want to sell my beads as supplies or go ahead and make pendants out of them and sell them as jewelry. I'm not so great with wire but I can do it. Guess I just need to practice. Like everything else practice, practice, practice.

I've been playing around with the highly silvered glass from Double Helix, I just can't get enough of it. However, I've been having trouble with with black wisps of soot in my clear glass. I think I'm trying to get too much out of my torch or the oxy concentrator to be exact. I can keep turning up the propane but at some point there just isn't enough oxygen to burn off all the propane and it causes soot in the beads. So, at some point I either have to get another oxygen concentrator or live with the lower heat ranges that I get. Guess I'm just thinking out loud here. I need a bead annealer first. I use a fiber blanket to cool my beads and then batch anneal them right now, not the optimum way but it works and I rarely loose a bead from cracking.

Anyway, here are some my latest beads, I've put the silver glass away so that I can focus on getting good shapes. Occasionally I use a bit of it but for the most part I need to really learn the basics first.