I can see, plus sparkles and cats

What a difference the new glasses make! Just made the yellow disappear. I could actually see what I was making, for once. It took some getting used to, since I've learned to find the "sweet spot" in the flame by the color of the flame as well as the glass,

Since my new cubic zirconias arrived today, of course I had to experiment with them. I put two into a pretty little bead that I made. One of them has a tiny crack around it, and I don't know if it will survive annealing. We'll see!

I also tried my first cat bead. I modeled it after my boyfriend's cat, Fluffy, who is black and white. (Mine is all black, so he wouldn't make as interesting a bead.) It's really cute, especially since I was running out of gas toward the end! There are definitely improvements to make (the tail broke off when removing it from the mandrel, for instance), but it's not bad for a first try. Even my boyfriend, who isn't a bead fan, was impressed.