Spanish leather

About time I got something up on the new colors.  This one is one that intrigued me ever since I tried to get it as an inexpensive conicle, or pulled rod end, and found it had sold out.  Imagine what that would have been like, considering its normally shocky nature.  As it was, I did have the end of the rod pop off once, but that was due to my impatience rather than the glass, which I found to be reasonably stable, if very soupy when hot.  Even with the gas pressure in my cylinder running low, I was able to get it moving on the mandrel easily, so much so that I had a hard time gravity shaping these rounds.

On to the color itself.  I think it is a member of the large and extended coral family from Effetre.  It goes grey when hot and to judge by the reactions with the colors I tested, seems to act the same way. 
Beads 1 and 8 are plain self spacers.  1 was barely shaped, if at all, since the doorbell rang as I was starting what was meant to be a test bead with black.  I like the red line from the unstruck glass.  The test bead with black will be made at some point.
8 is the same bead, which was made first, but melted round and fire polished.  I like 1 better. 
2 is with silver foil melted in and going black and beaded.  I wonder how this would look as a silvered stringer on a black bead. 
3 is with silver foil, melted in and encased in Effetre super clear, which seems to have a scumming problem in the current rod I am using, since it did this on the other encased beads I did on this rod and not the one before.  It's not doing anything for me.
4 is with DH aurae just about melted in and reduced.
5 is another surprise: aurae again, left a little raised, reduced and encased in that same clear rod again.  I need to get a different rod out and see if things improve.  I got that purple reaction again.  I wish I could predict this, since I really like this shade of purple.  I wonder what would happen if I entirely encased a bead of Spanish leather with aurae.  I can't get more of the zucca chiaro, but can get Spanish leather.  Hmmmm.
6 is with copper green and there is a faint dark reaction line on the Spanish leather.  I don't know that I would ever use this combination, since it was better in my mind than it turned out in the bead.
7 us with Effetre ivory.  I expected the Spanish leather to bleed, or the ivory, and to my surprise, neither did.  This is good to know.

My overall impression of this color is that I will buy it again.  I like it on its own, since it is a warm, woody, streaky earth tone, even if it is a little more than a little soft.  I like the unencased silver foil bead and what it does with aurae I will be exploring further.  I love the idea that it is hand pulled, but the likely reason that it is no longer available as a conicle is that it will come out next in a machine version.  I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing, since machine pulled glass tends to be cheaper.  Cheaper isn't necessarily better, though.  I deleted the rant I was going into.  I like this color and will use it again, probably a lot.