A Different Way to Spend a Day

I had planned to spend today photographing and listing pieces on Etsy, but the sun did not cooperate so I browsed Etsy and created this treasury list.

I also made quite a few beads, a few of which I hope turned out.  There are always so many that aren't what I thought they were going to be.

One of the things that kinda freaked me out glasswise was my last batch of CiM Stoneground.  It is a wonderful color that I had been having pretty predictable results with.  CiM is known for the consistency of their colors and when they have one that doesn't perform within parameters, they label it as a unique.  Their standards must be pretty high, because some of their uniques are practically indistinguishable from their standard colors.

The last batch of Stoneground I got was not a unique but for me it's not at all like the last two I bought.  It comes out lighter and strikes differently.  I don't know if it is because of the silver content and the extreme variability it adds to glass (which is why a lot of us like it) but for whatever reason it strikes pink and purple like Canyon de Chelly instead of the golden brown I'm used to.  Here are some pictures to illustrate

 Here are rods of both and a bead I made with the new.  The top rod is the new batch and the bottom 2 are the old.  The worked end shows some of the difference.  Notice how the struck end is pinker on top.  Pay no attention to the way I work a rod down until the 1" masking tape I have at the end catches fire and burns my fingers.  The color of the unworked rods isn't too different, but I can see a bit of pinkness in the shimmer on the top rod that is absent in the bottom.  The bead didn't come out as golden as I'd hoped for this animal print bead, but under all that amber and topaz it isn't ugly.

The vessel on the left is the last one I made with the old batch.  I got a little pinkishness on the flared part where I suppose it received the most heat, but this is pretty much what I was getting all along.  The other vessels and beads were all made with the new batch.  I thought the blue lizard would show up very nicely against the golden vessel, and he still would have looked nice if I hadn't given him a snout like Jimmy Durante.  I'm calling him my Rodney Dangerbead.  The strange vessel with the blue aventurine and silvered ivory was an effort to see if working it longer helped.  It made it worse, and to make matters worse, I somehow deflated the back of the vessel and cracked it near the rim trying to fix it.  I just popped it into the annealer and resolved to do better next time.  I like the other blue lizard even though his bead is still pinkish. 

I'm getting used to the new batch and if I look at it as a different color, I like it just fine.  I love striking glass and glass that does weird stuff.  Now I just have to learn this one's tricks.