Found Treasures

The thermocouple on my kiln was damaged when I moved so no new beads until next week when the new one comes in, which has me down in a big way.  I did manage to find a few sets of beads that I hadn't listed yet when I moved, so I can have some new things.  I'll ration them out, I think.

My favorite, made with Devardi Aurora frit on CiM Peace.

I really like the delicate color on them.  It's a tough call which I like better, the Aurora on copper green or Peace.

The Effetre streaky denim spacers and indigo hollows I blogged about last week, and I'm not looking forward to trying to get some usable photos of the hollows.  They are lovely and I was going to make them into earrings for myself.  I still might.

I have a second Etsy shop, Fire in Ice Baubles, for handmade findings and non-lampwork jewelry and I made some very cool beads for earrings to demonstrate some dark silver plum headpins I made.  I'm really digging the way the beads look with the copper head pins and end caps.

The beads are a base of Effetre Spring Willow with Double Helix scrolls.  I thought the spring willow would do that wild orange thing it does but apparently this time it decided not to.  It didn't blush much either.  I love the unpredictability of this color!  I made these beads the same day, with the same rod and some blushed and some didn't.

Check out the first spacer to the right of the focal.  Half went orange and the other half pink.  So cool!  If anyone knows why it does what it does, let me know, otherwise I'll have all kinds of fun trying to figure it out on my own.

Tell Me Why...

...I don't like Mondays.  Bonus points for anyone who knows the artist from the 80's who recorded that song.  It's been going through my head all day.

Seriously, it's been that kind of day.  I'm sidelined with a head cold that has made me feel less than my best, and now this:

Can I have a little consistancy, please?  Should I just scrap this idea?  Or am I going to obsess until I can do it again?  Probably the last one.

Spring Willow Revisited

 Here are a few of the beads with Effetre Spring Willow.  The blush looks a lot better now than it did going into the annealer.  Kiln striking?  Don't know, but I like it.   I threw in a few spacers of Effetre Sedona to highlight the colors, and I do like the combination.  Both glasses are very variable and I think they work well together.

 My leaf....  Quite a bit of drooping going on in the annealer, and that bubble on the right side wasn't there going in.  Rats.  I'll just say it adds to the organic feel of the bead.

On the back in the protected, unstruck part beneath the mandrel, is the color the rods and beads start out.  Now it is easy to see why I thought this might act like Effetre copper green.  When I feel better I'm going to play with this some more.

Patience is a Virtue

Patience may be a virtue, but I'm not at all virtuous some days.  I'm listening to the annealer relays click and wishing it would get on with it.  I made some more beads with the spring willow I blogged about yesterday and I can't wait to see what happened.  Like all cases of infatuation, there is that initial glow and the inevitable disillusionment.

Today's disillusionment came when I changed the tank on my MAPP gas.  The flame is hotter and voila, not only is spring willow soupy but it boils.  Badly.  Ever so much worse than ivory.  I've never seen huge bubbles form within the rod as I'm heating it.  Must see what it does with intense black and Hades.  Usually when I get an air bubble in a bead I heat it more to get it thin, let it cool a little and pop it with my probe.  These puppies just keep reforming.  It also seems to scum up quite a bit the way turquoise does.  Don't know what will come out of the Chillipepper....

The first bead sagged so much while I was trying to get a bubble out that I finally decided to go with it and let it sag all the way, pressed it in my leaf masher and drew it out to a point.  It didn't seem to strike as beautifully today either.  Probably needs to be done at a lower temperature.  Assuming the beads anneal at some point I'll throw in some pictures.

The apartment is about 90 degrees with the heat wave we've been having and the torch and kiln on.  Dinner tonight may very well be leftovers.  I don't know, though.  I don't get home until 11 tomorrow and have to be at work at 5:30 on Saturday so I'm not loving the idea of cooking tomorrow night.

Until I have pictures of the beads I made today, here are some that feel right for the weather.

Effetre Spring Willow

 I ordered this color with intense reservations, remembering my experience with Effetre mint green, which for me was just a variation of their copper green that didn't do anything special for me.  The picture on Frantz' web site looked very similar.  A little more yellow perhaps, with some streakiness.  As soon as I started heating it I knew this was not the case.  It went transparent the way the ivory shaded odd lots from Vetrofond did.

 The top bead is perhaps the worst lentil I've ever made.  Ignore the shaping and it is with silver melted in and reduced and encased in Effetre super clear.  This glass stays very soupy, and droops in the kiln a bit if it isn't set well going in.  It also strikes to the most delicate pink, which looks phenomenal with the pale green.  Melted in silver doesn't improve it, but that's OK, I like it just the way it is!

 Because it melted like Vetrofond biscotti, I tried it out with DH Triton.  I didn't get much reduction (my fault, not the glass) but the fuming is gorgeous.  Have a close up.  It's almost like another glass.

I didn't actually test this on ivory and I wish I had, but here it is with other colors.  It looks good with CiM tuxedo on the left on both beads.  The top bead has a core of spring willow and the bottom one is with other colored base glass.  Next up on the top bead is copper green, which gets lost.  Copper green is the middle right band on the bottom bead, and other than the spreading, nothing dramatic, so spring willow isn't an ivory.  Opal yellow is on the right end on the top bead and middle left on the bottom.  It so gets lost under the spring willow, both as stringer and as a base.  Peace was the last test color and it holds up a bit better than the opal yellow but bleeds a lot.

I like this glass and I'm thinking 1/4 lb. isn't going to last too long.  I want to do some plain beads just with spring willow to explore that blushing thing, and you can bet I'm going to see what it does with Psyche and a larger bead with Triton, probably doing a set for myself.