The Blue Brick | Photography and Handcrafts by Shireen Nadir

I set my pants on fire in Monday night lampworking. I can’t help but feel that it was a rite of passage; I now have the right to produce decent beads. (I’m exaggerating, actually my glass ‘shocked’ in the torch and hot glass shrapnel landed in my lap. It hurt though, in that ‘surprise pain’ kinda way. Let’s face it, ‘on fire’ sounds way more dramatic.)

Anyways, having paid the requisite fee to the gods of glass I went on to have a pretty decent night. They’re almost always round now!!!

My fellow Monday night lampworkers recommended “Passing the Flame” by Corina Tettinger. It’s a pretty good read, and I decided to try the simplish looking ‘Rainbow Bead’.

Nailed it?

I actually feel pretty decent about the attempt, I learned a lot and I’m looking forward to giving it another go. My biggest disappointment was the fact that the clear I used for encasing got this ‘scorched’ look.

Here is my first take at encased florals – for the encasing I used a clear amber, you can see the difference in how clear it came out.

I also tried the same effect with an amber-light yellow combo. For some reason my colours didn’t blend like hers did. I’ll have to find out why.

Next week I’ll be trying to build on the same skills ;) In other news I’ve finally got a sewing machine! Quilts, customized hand bags and clothes that actually fit… I can’t wait. Begone, hole in my crafting arsenal!

Tito and I were back in the lampworking studio on Monday night for what, I can now safely say, was a far more successful evening.

I worked with only 5 colours all night trying to create beads that, above all, were reasonably round. Yes, that was my only goal. Round, with nice holes. It sounds weird, but I can’t think of any other way to put that. It’s just lousy when the glass grips the mandrel in such a way that you don’t get that nice, doughnut shaped centre.

Not one piece broke in the kiln! I think the trick really was the heat factor, this time I made sure I kept my beads good and hot the entire time. I probably even overdid it – which is why none of my design work really came out well, but I’m ok with that. It’s progress ;)

Then I discovered that the beautiful frosted effect one sees on many lampwork beads is just etching solution that you can pick up at a craft store. Can anyone guess what my next round of beads will be for? Yep, etching is in my future, and I’ve already got ideas for pieces that will look like sea glass when they’re done.

One of the beads was so lovely that I just strung it on a silver chain. It’s about 15mm wide, and it made a great pendant. It’s so satisfying to wear something you made from scratch.

Tito went right over the whole bead business and started creating glass sculpture. I need to share his pieces tomorrow – they included a bee, a turtle and a butterfly! I was seriously impressed. Suddenly my goal of ’round’ didn’t seem quite so lofty. He turned out to be a real natural at this.

I love working with glass, it’s such a different feeling from pottery. I’m hoping to get further in glass blowing this summer. Over Christmas Tito and I finally did something with all those ornaments we made in our intro course last year.

Can’t wait for next Monday night – and can’t wait to get my hands on some etching solution – oh, the possibilities!