Tish, that's French!

I've got the song from the Addams Family stuck in my head.  I recently listed the earring set below on Etsy, named L'Heure Bleue after the way the intense blue, glowing color reminds me of twilight.  Of course, being a child when I was I immediately made the association, "Tish, that's French!" and viola!  I'm stuck with Gomez for the rest of the day.  The old one, not the excellent portrayal by the late Raoul Julia.

 These earrings seem to glow on their own just like the light at dusk seems to almost self-illuminate.  I love the glass, CiM sapphire, because everything I make with it does this.  I don't think you could make a truly horrible bead with this color.  I don't know whether it's the degree of saturation or the just-right frequency of light that it transmits, but it's a winner.

 How does it stack up against the innumerable transparent blues out there?  I only have a handful and I've got most of them pictured above and, except for the CiM sapphire, all are Effetre.  Up until a couple days ago, if you asked me what the perfect transparent blue was, I would have told you 060 cobalt on the top or it's fraternal twin, mosaic blue.  This is the blue most people think of when they think of blue glass.  Truth be told, in beads, it's just a shade too dark to show up well.  Mosaic blue is almost identical in intensity and hue, but I love what it does with silver glass.  The next rod down is 058, ink blue.  Yes, it looks darker than the cobalt, but this is a trick of the light and the camera.  It's less intense and slightly more red and grey.  057 is next and is more intense than sapphire, but it is again a hair too dark to be able to transmit that intensity in the bead.  Next is sapphire and finally, 056 medium blue, which is a good blue and shows up well in beads, but if you take an average person and show them a bead made with this, they will tell you that it is light blue.

Finally, above, a gratuitous shot of the first hollow bead I made that I felt good enough about to list.  It is CiM sapphire and DH aurae. 

I'm definitely going to be laying in a supply of this lovely glass.  It doesn't do for everything, and for what it won't work for there are other glasses to use, but if I could only have one shade of transparent blue in my palette this would probably be it.