Glass | The Blue Brick | Photography and Handcrafts by Shireen Nadir

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Lampworked glass, session 4

Published April 7, 2011 Glass Leave a Comment
Tags: beads, glass, lampworking, silver

Here is a view of a glass pendant that came out of the kiln on Monday. I had foolishly decided to use glue on the post, which resulted in Tito having to rescue the piece by cleaning it up and grinding off the glue. Good thing though, because I really loved the piece and felt terrible after I thought I had wrecked it!

Here is the other side. There are 4 different colours of glass involved; white, two different kinds of clear and a warm lilac.

The piece is an inch long (not including the post) and is the largest piece of glass I’ve worked so far. The rectangular shape is hand-pressed while the glass is still red hot. It’s topped off with a sterling silver post and strung onto a sterling silver collar. It’s lovely and classy – and as usual, I can’t wait to get back to the studio so I can improve on it!

I’m getting better at this… more glasswork

Published March 18, 2011 Glass , Jewelry , Knitting , Uncategorized 1 Comment
Tags: bracelet, glass, lampworking

I’m getting better at this :)

This is the front view of my latest bracelet.

And a side/clasp view. With this one I used the same colour scheme for all beads but experimented with different forms and shapes. I discovered that flattened beads sit more comfortably against my wrist. I’ve got a bunch more ideas stemming from this, can’t wait to get back to beadfx!

This is my favourite piece so far – I took the best bead from my last session and purchased an attachment that would let me hang it from a chain.

Out of all my lampworked stuff this is the first one I’ve loved enough to wear.

In other news I’m almost out of the long dark eternity of the sweater – I’m finishing up the seed stitch hem on my TFA sunset cardi and will be starting the sleeves this weekend! I’m well on target for getting to wear it at the knitters frolic this May, but hoping to have it earlier as it’s occurring to me that, by May, things in Toronto may be a little warm. I’ve also got a fun idea for making the clasp out of glass, we’ll see how that plays out ;o)

Speaking of that sweater – I had started a fair isle design at the bottom that turned out pretty badly owing to a) my poor understanding of intarsia and when you need to secure your strands differently and b) tight strands, which started to pucker. I had to frog it back for 4 inches and chickened out of re-attempting the fair isle in favour of just finishing it with the sunset. To aid me in this adventure I used this handy tutorial from knitty.

Glass Lampworking, take II

Published March 11, 2011 Glass 3 Comments
Tags: beads, bracelet, glass, lamp working

Before I show you todays piece I want to express my sadness and horror at the devastation Japan experienced with this morning’s earthquake and Tsunami. I’ve been to Japan, and I can say that they are an impressive people; strong, disciplined, brilliant, cooperative and resilient, and I know they will show all of those wonderful qualities in the days ahead as they deal with this terrible tragedy.

The bead above is just a solo bead that I didn’t do anything with yet, but I was so thrilled with how beautifully it turned out that I had to put it up here – I love the colour, the details and the way the brown just sweeps across the blue! If I had the skill I’d make 12 more beads just like this one so I could make a bracelet, but alas I don’t have the skill to make things that actually match yet.

Speaking of trying to match things though, here is my 2nd attempt at a bracelet. Though none of the beads match each other, they were made with the same techniques, and the same colour glass, so that helped create a cohesive result.

Here is a close up view. I broke out of my colour scheme a bit this time by going with violets in stead of the predictable turquoise. I’m back in the studio for 2 hours tonight though, and I think I’ll try and make earrings this time.