No lampwork today

Instead, I've focused on other jewelry. I completed one custom order, and I made a bunch of new ear threads yesterday that I've been photographing and putting on the site little by little. They're so pretty!

Bead photos

Here are photos of the beads I've made so far. My intention is to finish the series and make these into a bracelet, except probably for the squished one. I still need to clean & anneal these.


Squished bead (put in fiber too early)


This little green and white bead is really sweet.


This blue and off-white bead looks very tilted in the photo, but it's not really that bad. It almost has decent puckers, and the patterns inside it are very lovely.


It's kinda hard to see it in the photo, but I used the black stringer I made on this one. Doesn't show up that well. Also a mean non-pucker on this one.


On this bead, some bead release got mixed in the glass. I decided to go ahead with it to see what would happen. It brought about some interesting patterns and effects. I hope it survives the annealing process.


My favorite bead so far. It's the largest, starting with a black base, then layered with off-white and transparent blue. Beautiful patterns inside it, and perfect puckers! It's still a little lopsided, though.

Slowly getting better!

Disappointment

The lampwork shop, which was a 45-minute drive away through mucho traffic, was a disappointment. It's really a large studio in a renovated mill, actually a cool place, but the guy told me that he had to leave in 5 minutes. (I arrived at 4:00.) I asked if I could look at what he had before he had to leave, and he agreed. So I hastily collected a bunch of rods, the primary purpose for my trip. I piled everything up, and was about to start on tools, when he said he had to leave. I asked if I could pay for what I'd gathered, but he denied me even the opportunity to do that! He said he had to pick up his wife.

He also told me that his website said that the hours were "by appointment." I had looked all over his site for the hours his shop was open, but hadn't seen any; obviously I missed that. Looking at the site now, I can see it says an appointment is recommended, but only because they may be occasionally out of the studio. Maybe it's me, but this gives a different impression than what the owner gave me on my visit.

This was a big disappointment. I had been so excited to find a relatively local place that carried lampworking supplies. The owner of the place, though, was very abrupt and had no kind words to say, not even an offer to, for example, let me order what I'd picked out and ship it to me. Nothing! All I could say to him as I left was, "I could have been a very good customer." And I could have, too! Had he treated me kindly, I may have even bought a kiln from him down the road, an investment of hundreds of dollars. But I will not be visiting that place again. I would never treat a customer like that.

It took me a little while to get over that disappointment. One thing that helped was the friendly nature of a man walking down the street in the downtown area. This town has been depressed for a long time, but it's starting to revive. I walked around the area for a while, just looking at the changes, as long as I was there. Soon my path was joined by a man with two small children. The children were running around avoiding the cracks. I contemplated how children do that, and how maybe it's to create some excitement for themselves in the boredom of walking down city streets. If they lived in the country, would they have a need to do something like this?

Anyway, the man and I somehow got to talking, a very unusual circumstance among strangers on the street in the Boston area. Somehow that was comforting after the unwelcoming experience I'd had at the shop. Thank you to that anonymous man!

Found a lampworking shop nearby!

Oooh, good news! I just discovered there is a lampwork shop only about half an hour from my house! I think I'll go visit them tomorrow. Very happy! They offer workshops and torch time, too. :-)

Things I learned tonight

I torched tonight again. After making a bead in the set I'm working on, I tried to make a black stringer. My first attempt was terrible, resulting in a big blob of black glass that would be useless. The second attempt was better, though extremely (too) thin.

I also had another disaster trying to apply glass to several layers of bead. Still getting the hang of applying glass in this cooler torch than Tink's. This one broke the bead release and ended up in the can of cold water. :-( It was gonna be a good one, too.

My big problem is seeing. I just don't see clearly with the clip-ons I bought with the kit. This makes what I'm doing more dangerous. If I keep the glasses flipped up, I can see better, but then I risk problems with my eyes. So next purchase: a better pair of lampwork glasses.

Very important learning experience: Be careful of what music I listen to! A rather harsh song started playing on my iPod, and it affected my nerves, leading to destruction of bead. (Don't worry, not using a headphones, rather a portable stereo setup.) So I naturally switched albums after that. Calming but peppy music works well for me. One song came on that made me want to dance, which is another no-no while torching, at least for me!

Day 2 of torching and my house is still standing. Wonderful! May it continue forever after!

Safety First!

Here's my little lampwork studio.

My torch setup had been pretty unstable, and I felt unsafe with it. When you're working with big, big flames, safety is a pretty high priority!

While I've worked with small tools for making jewelry, I haven't done much construction or power tool work. But I saw that the best solution would be to mount the bracket to my stainless steel table. Given that my boyfriend is busy this week, I decided to do it myself.

The torch came with a right-angle bracket for use with a clamp and the gas tank. I went to the hardware store and bought a titanium drill bit for use with metal that I eyeballed to be around the right side for the hole in the clamp. I then spent a very long time with a brand-new associate who didn't know the information I needed until a more seasoned man came along to show me which nut and bolt I needed.

At home, I drilled holes in my stainless steel cart, which was a challenge for the first time using a drill! Those things are tough. But I did it right the first time, picking the correct spots for the holes. The drill bits and nuts and bolts were exactly the right size. Yay! Here's a picture; I'm so proud.

I want to thank my good friend Richard, who is a very skilled carpenter and from whom I learned so much about using power tools. If it weren't for him, no doubt I would have made a total mess of it, or maybe I wouldn't have even known where to start!

Beadmaking Beginnings

I'm starting this blog as a way to log my lampworking adventures, at least to start.

It all started with my trip to Toledo to study lampwork with Tink of Black Swamp Glassworks. That was an awesome trip, where I learned a ton in just over 24 hours. But I hadn't had a chance to apply it in the year and four months since that trip.

Then in the last couple of weeks, I cleared out our little basement workshop space and set up the stainless steel serving cart that I'd bought last summer for this purpose. I'll post pics later of my teeny little lampwork studio.

Getting it all going was a little dramatic. I finally got a good deal on a kit through my bulk buying group. But the shipping company delayed the package a few days past its promised delivery date. Then the torch I received was defective.

Finally, yesterday I had everything in place: all the parts and the working torch. I made my first bead, but put it in the fiber blanket too hot, so it got squished and picked up some fiber pattern.

I liked how the colors turned out, though, so I made a couple more in that style, this time waiting until the red disappeared before putting them in the fiber blanket. Voila, decent beads!

The untimely demise of my hotheaded new friend

This is a reprint of a message I sent to the bead buying group through which I bought my kit. It amused some people, so thought I'd reprint it.

Note beforehand: this is about a torch, not a man. Sorry to disappoint!

I had high hopes for my newly-cleansed torch, but they were soon dashed to bits like so many rods into frit. The torch lit up at a higher flame than before, but not easily, and still bushy. I turned it off to put on my glasses.

The second time it was much harder to light. When it was finally lit and I'd been working with it for a bit, I smelled gas... I turned off the torch and aired out the room in case the odor was left over from when I'd been trying to light the torch.

The third time, I lit it (still difficult) and didn't smell gas, so I started melting my rod. (Boy, there are so many double entendres in this message; the rod was even skin-colored!)

A few minutes into it, when the rod was finally forming a nice knob on the tip (LOL), I saw steam or smoke coming out the side of the torch. True, it had been soaked the night before, but it had been drying all day on a very dry day today.

Anyway, that's when I called it quits with this bad boy altogether. Finite. No more. No more cleaning, soaking, or nothing.

I'm obviously too much woman for this torch head. Heck, I'm too much woman for the whole kit, which spent several days in a Fedex warehouse avoiding being delivered to me! (Any word on that shipping refund, Wendy?) Obviously I will be a true genius whenever I am finally able to start this up. Or a guardian angel is preventing me from burning the house down... it's got to be one or the other!