These are the only beads I made with this color, because they represent an entire rod of this super shocky color. I got tired of chasing hot chunks of flying glass shards and quit while I still had a "studio." I will say right off the bat I will not be buying this color again, ever. I preheated the heck out of it in every way I knew and it still exploded, and not just in the rod end pops off kind of way but shards flying all over the place. I had a tough time even getting the end of the rod hot enough to start winding it, instead I held pieces in a pair of needle nose pliers and more or less stuck them to the mandrel. Making beads was not a pleasant experience and if this was the first color I worked with, it would have been the last. Strangely enough, this came out as zucca scuro in the "silver challenge" bundle released in December and that rod didn't do this. I am just not willing to risk burning myself or my abode any more.
That having been said only 2 beads are even remotely worth it: the bead in the middle is with dots of DH psyche, melted in and reduced, and the one on the right which is dots of intense black and dots of dark pumpkin on top (this was very tricky to make.) While I like the way both of these turned out, the place can't take another go at trying to make more.
Others may have had other experiences with this color and are welcome to tell me about them in comments, even link in your pictures if you can figure out how.
A while back I tested out Effetre dark pumpkin and swore I would never, ever use the color again. I lied. Halloween fast approacheth and I find myself making pumpkins, and the light pumpkin, while still pumpkin colored, doesn't have the oomph for what I wanted. So I put on the safety glasses and removed anything remotely flamable from my work area, preheated a new rod in the annealer and held my breath. Keeping in mind the explosiveness I had experienced in the past, I gennnntly heated the rods and to my amazement, after the end popped off it settled down and was workable. I did get what I think might have been a bubble in the rod that blew the end off once, but no more raining chunks of hot glass. Yay! I might be able to use this color if I remember it needs to be annealed first. I also took the precaution of running a long soak and a slow cool with the finished beads just in case. The above pendant is made with dark pumpkin with CiM split pea and Slytherin vine cane. The set below is the same combination of glasses. I was very happy with the way both came out. Will I use dark pumpkin again? Yes, with extreme caution and not when I'm wearing anything I'm attached to.
