strawberry pink

 These earrings I made using the newer version of Vetrofond strawberry sweet odd lot and rose cane with Effetre pale pink special and Vetrofond arancino perfecto odd.  They were just listed on Etsy as I can't resist this style of earring. I also like the different tone produced by using different colors in the rose, though this isn't quite the peach I was looking for.  Maybe the banana cream for the opaque?  I need a pale yellow and don't want to use ivory because of the potential reactions.
 Quite a difference between the 2 batches of strawberry sweet.  The first makes a good earthtone and the second, in the picture below, seems more of a pinkish coral in the bead, if not the rod.  In the small beads this is not as apparent, but I wasn't building up as large a bead as with the lower one and the inner layers didn't come up.  Both look different in rod and bead form and both are unusual shades of pink.  What else to say?  I am keeping a little of both lots, since this color looks like it's going to vary a lot and who knows what's going to come in next time I order this glass.

I've been working on getting test beads for more colors, but my attention seems to be wandering from one color to the next and don't seem to want to do too much of one color on the 30 minutes or so I have on the torch before the gas cylinder frosts up and the pressure drops to the point where I worry about the flame staying hot enough to work or even going out in the middle of a bead.  This is a problem I seem to be having a lot as I try to stretch out my working time.  Cindy Jenkins suggests switching tanks or immersing the bottom in warm water but the prospect of gripping the hot Hothead and putting it on a fresh cylinder doesn't appeal any more than sitting with a bucket of warm water between my knees to soak the bottom of the tank.  Either way threre's going to be some sort of accident.