New Glass

Huzzah! I finally got a striking color from Double Helix that worked for me! Following the directions on their website, I wound off a simple bead and popped it in to anneal. The second one was heavily encased in, as it turns out, Effetre whisper instead of the Effetre super clear I thought was on the table. In my lousy lighting they looked the same.... At any rate it's blue and ruby with a little green and looks pretty good by me. Good to know it doesn't react with the whisper, but next time I'd rather do clear. These were garaged for about an hour at 965 then soaked for 2 hours at 1000, then ramped down 100 degrees/hour to 500.

These beads were DH Nyx, which didn't do anything funky and organic, but didn't do anything ugly either. The bottom bead was heated to soup but otherwise left alone. I attempted to reduce the middle one but I don't see any difference other than less striking. The top bead was reduced and encased in whisper again. Now I don't know whether the brownish green streak was my technique or a reaction with the whisper. Further testing will show.

The green bead is CiM Ephalba, just because I like this combination. The bead directly above it is made with CiM Evil Queen, which I was forced to buy because Frantz stopped carrying my fav, Thai Orchid. It is not brown but isn't the rich purple of the Thai Orchid either. The bottom bead is Effetre Sedona, because it was on the table I take these photographs on and I thought it looked good with the other 2.

CiM's new super saturated aqua, Azure. Remains very vividly turquoise transparent over white. I'm not sure whether it is CiM Peace or Effetre Anice White. Definitely not white pastel.

Finally, Effetre Pale Emerald handmade by itself, over the same white and Effetre Uranium Yellow by itself. I wanted to get CiM Appletini but Frantz was out.

Effetre Neptune

Neptune is one of the new colors from Effetre that looked very promising in the catalog. My beads are no where near as nice as the ones pictured by others, but I really like this color.

In the rod it reminds me very strongly of CiM mermaid, in fact labeling would be an issue if the rods weren't so irregular. Obviously a hand pulled color. One of them is almost 10mm and all are a little lumpy. This I don't mind. It is supposed to develop a silver metallic lustre, except under clear. Clear removes this lustre, even if it is well developed when the clear is applied. I tried to do a plain bead without lustre and one with, by working it high in the flame as I would plum silver. The one on the left is wound and that's it, and I allowed the one on the right to cool a little and reheated it gently. I think there is a little change but not as much as I could have hoped.

Under clear, the change is striking. The bicone is just Neptune and clear, the oval is with Effetre whisper because I wanted to see if it would do anything weird under a gold pink and wanted to be able to see it if it did. The cylindrical bead is rolled in silver foil, melted in and trailed with clear. I don't see a whole lot of difference between the beads at all.

Does Neptune play nice with others? Pretty much. Intense black bled, and I put dots of clear on the top of the top dots of Neptune so I could see what was happening underneath. EDP looks nice but the Neptune dots get kind of lost over the EDP and under the clear. I didn't dot the Neptune over the ivory because I knew there would be that grey line and wanted to see what happened to the ivory with all that green around. It held its own.

Copper leaf accentuates the lustre process, and gives a lustre-like effect under clear. Good to know, but I didn't do a very good job of encasing, did I?

I made a couple wee beads just for fun and am happy about the way the one on the left, with triton and clear turned out. I'm not so happy how the one with plum silver and clear turned out, but what did I expect. I did learn that plum silver dark is indistinguishable from the Neptune once it is struck. I don't know what I was trying to do with the tiny dots of clear, but it didn't work, whatever it was.



Will I buy this color again? Yep, and I will play lots more with the lustre glasses from Double Helix.

Effetre whisper

Effetre whisper, looking very intriguing in the sample bead and pretty neat to add to my repertoire in general. It is nearly clear, with just a hint of gold pink, and a viscous quality that my cheap camera doesn't do justice to.

The first bead is just by itself. The second is reduced. I made it larger so I could tell the 2 apart in case the similarity was too great. No chance. 3 is with intense black dots, because I could see doing this. The black doesn't quite take over the bead. 4 is with copper red green. There is a red shift here, accentuated by the layering of whisper dots over the red. The green dots are more pronounced than this picture lets on. 5 is over ivory. I figured the color was a gold pink and this bead proves it. Still, because of the lack of intensity in the color this is an effect I might just use if it is reproducible. 6 is with EDP stringer. The EDP almost seemed to feed the whisper, even while it was being worked. I wonder what it would do with 456 rubino oro or veiled rubino? The last bead is with DH aurae, melted in and reduced. I was expecting it to go all yellow and wasn't surprised when it did. Would I do this on purpose on a bead? I don't know.

This is a neat color that I like the apparent viscosity of in the finished bead. How much I will use and whether I'll buy more if I run out I don't know. I'm glad I have some in my repertoire.