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!