Cooking the Wash

That could be the title of a chapter in the book I'm reading, The Undomestic Goddess, but it isn't. It means I have just put my first coats of kiln wash on my kiln shelf and floor, and now I have the kiln ramping up to dry out the wash. When it's finished, I'll be able to melt glass in my kiln! Little by little, step by step, it's all getting set up.

There may be soon an opportunity for me to get a real torch. At the same time, I think I need to think about good ventilation before going to that next step - if I do. Installing a hood seems like a reachable goal at this point, where it seemed very daunting before.

Why is it taking so long to get back in the lampwork game? Partly because I have a cold, and partly because I have fallen back in love with knitting. During the summer, I sat in meetings a lot, which I haven't done in a while. To avoid going stir-crazy with all the sitting and listening, I started knitting again - and have gotten into a whole bunch of fun and fruitful projects. The first few are winging their way to my sister, who is one of the "displaced persons" from New Orleans. I just finished a cute hat for myself, and I have a couple of other projects ongoing. It seems like there need to be at least three active knitting projects going for me to feel happy: one big project, one medium, and one quick.

An outcome of all this is a really cute knitted choker that I have put up for sale on the Boutique. I just bought more yarn to make other styles of this sweet choker. Check back later!

That's Clever! Air Date Info

Finally tonight I was able to get the information for my air date on That's Clever! on HGTV. It is supposed to be October 20. It may change, though; my show number is 119, which is a better way to track it. Check it out! I hope it's not terrible...

New kiln set up!

This weekend I set up my kiln, with dear Ed's help. I bought an X-table to act as a stand for it, and it's very sturdy.

I ran my first batch annealing cycle in it with all the beads I've made that I have left - many have been given or traded away already. It went well, though it took a long time; I think the time was lengthened by the opening left by the bead door not closing all the way. As a temporary solution, I put a fiber blanket in the crack, and that seemed to help.

I can't believe I can actually start lampworking with a KILN!

Kiln Arrived!

My new Jen-Ken kiln finally arrived Tuesday, but I haven't had a chance to set it up yet - the new school year has me swamped! Plus I have had a mild cold. Perhaps this weekend it can happen... we'll see! I'll post the results.

Birthday today, no kiln yet, but new camera!

Today was my birthday, and I spent about 12 hours of it working. Such is life!

My kiln has not yet arrived. I hope and expect it to arrive in the next day or two.

But my great birthday present was a new camera, a Canon Powershot SD500, 7 megapixels. A great replacement for my Nikon Coolpix 775 that has mostly died. I look forward to lots of good bead pics with this camera.

Here are a few first impressions:

The technology has progressed a lot in the last 4-5 years since I got my Nikon. The 775 was advanced for its time and probably would've stayed usable many more years had I not run it over with my car... as it is, Ed should get plenty of use from it still, with his light use. (I took over 10,000 photos on that baby!)

The new camera is the same height and length, but only half the width. It feels as heavy since there is more metal in the body, a new trend in camera-making that I like, as it speaks of improved quality.

The movie mode is quite high-quality and filled up my meager 32MB SD card that came with the camera in seconds. I foresee many opportunities with a larger SD card!

The flash is quite good, much better than the Nikon; the scene modes hold lots of possibility; and the macro is decent. (Nikon is the clear winner in this category, but the Canon was better in almost everything else, so I had to go with this one.)

I think I'm going to like this camera!

Still no kiln

Contrary to expectations, my kiln did not arrive by Labor Day, which was supposed to be an outside estimate. The kiln is being built in Florida, so hopefully that's the "good excuse" for the delay. It's just tough because I had ordered the kiln so I could really explore glass during the summer, my time off, but that is over now. Today was the first day of school, and boy, am I wiped out! So the remaining energy to get into glass will be tough to find, no doubt.

So my apologies for the lack of posts, but the delay is out of my control, and I really don't want to put lots of effort into making more beads that just break due to internal stresses. I know, these are minor worries, especially compared to the hurricane victims' lives!

Vooooomm! That disappeared FAST!

Oh my gosh... at 4:45 today, my bracelet was finally listed for sale at Crafters United. I checked again at 4:50, and it was gone! Sold! I couldn't believe it! Was trying to show it to my mother, but it was nowhere to be found, and when I used the History feature, the message, "You tried to view an item that is no longer for sale" came up. So that's another $30.00 donation to the hurricane with very little effort on my part.

I wish all my jewelry sold that quickly...

UPDATE: The lovely woman who bought this bracelet also bought matching earrings from my site. How sweet!

Hurricane Clearance

All day today I have been mulling how to help further with hurricane relief. Beyond helping my sister's family, my teaching job and online business don't provide the funds to make larger contributions.

Therefore, I decided to run a clearance sale on some of my older merchandise, which I was planning to do anyway, and donate the proceeds to hurricane relief. The sale will run through September 30, and everything in the Hurricane Clearance category will cost 30% less.

I hope everything sells! If so, that'll be close to an additional $350 for hurricane relief. If it goes well, I may add other items to the sale as well.

Apologies for another non-lampwork-related entry! Other things seem to be taking precedence for now. Hopefully I'll be able to torch again soon... but honestly, I'm a little stymied by the delay of my kiln, which was supposed to have arrived by now. I'm frustrated by glass beads breaking because they weren't annealed in time. Hopefully soon!

Hurricane Katrina Relief

This isn't directly lampwork related, but at times like this, other things take priority. I have been far too busy preparing for the school year to do any lampwork lately anyway.

Today Aspiring Arts has donated a bracelet to help raise funds for Katrina, via Crafters United, a partnership between crafters to help in this time of need. The bracelet is the paua shell bracelet, one that looks beautiful on any woman's wrist.

This disaster hits close to home, as my sister, the wife of the new rabbi of conservative Judaism in New Orleans, is one of the evacuees with her family. In addition to the loss of their new home and belongings, she has to deliver her baby in a different place, find new doctors, etc. while they wait to move back. It certainly could be worse, but I'm very glad they wisely evacuated when they were told to do so.

I would help anyway, of course, and will do so in other ways than this donation, but there are many wonderful items for sale at Crafters United. The bracelet will likely appear there later today. They also accept paypal donations of money to forward to the Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund. Consider buying your next gift need there; besides birthdays and special events, the holidays are not too far away!


Funds raised by Crafters United for the Red Cross so far