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At the end of October, I posted a picture of my first pig bead. Since then, I've been impatiently waiting for my copy of Jim Kervin's book" The Wild and Wonderful World of Sharon Peters and her Silly Sculptural Shapes". I'd orderd it from Arrow Springs with another book but when the order arrived, Jim's Book wasn't in it. Anyway, now that I have it I've been inspired to work on some sculptural shapes, especially as someone ordered a pig shaped bead from me. I've now made another two so that she can choose which one she wants and here are their pictures.Piggy Evolves

Things seem to be going wrong today.

I recently had a minor ant infestation in my flat which I thought I had got rid of but today I noticed that they'd come back so I had to spend a couple of hours trying to get rid off them again.

My Creative MP3 player crashed during a file transfer and once I had manually reset it and connected it back to my computer the driver no longer works and therfore the player is not recognised by the computer.

As part of the reset the music library on my MP3 player had to be recompiled by the player. After recompiling, the library seems corrupted in that although it seems to had all the required information about what tracks and albums are loaded it doesn't seem to be tranferring this information between all modes that the player goes through. this mean that for example when you are playing an a track from an album when you try and scroll to see the other tracks inside the album they just all show up as blank.

I had a hair appointment today at 9.00am and got back about 10.00. The house was quiet and the cats had been fed. There was no washing as Matt had been away for a few days so I decided to try another goddess. I'd already cut up some brown glass strips yesterday. I took my courage in both hands and lit the torch. Here's the front view,
Brown goddess front

and the back one
Brown goddess back

and lastly the right side view
Brown goddess right side

I found a goddess bead tutorial by Sarah J Schalken and wanted to try it out. I was very nervous knowing my previous experiences with the fish fins breaking off, but went ahead when the house was free from distractions so I could concentrate on trying to remember all the steps needed to create the Goddess. Here are some pictures of my first try.She's a little twisted, but knowing this, I can try to rectify this at the next try.Goddess Bead: Front view
I ran out of space on the mandrel to put on a head so had to create a seperate bead for this and take a guess at the correct size so that it would be in proportion with the head. The body at that time was immersed in vermiculite to slow down the rate at which the glass cooled and prevent cracking, so I couldn't compare the two together.

I've got fed up with looking at that bunny and pig so here are two fish.
Green Fish
I'm still having problems with them, keeping all of them hot while working on another part of the fish.

Blue Fish
Consequently both fish lost their side fins, these being the thinnest and therefore the most difficult parts to keep hot without melting them in the torch. Both side fins are glued on with E6000 glue which is a high viscosity, clear glue for both glass and metal.

I threatened the stained glass bead bunny and here it is.Bunny?: Hung over bunny

Here's a pig's head, made for John for obvious reasons. Surname Piggott.Pig: John's favourite.
I tried anyway and you don't learn if you don't try.

My oxycon I bought at the Essex Bead Fair last year was only delivering 2 litres of oxygen to my torch per minute so some of the paler colours were getting smoke damage and the torch was not throwing out enough heat to melt the glass quickly. So many of the different types require a constant flow of molten glass to achieve a smooth appearance without over cooking the bead. So I took the plunge and ordered a new concentrator from Creative Glass in Rochester, Kent. I had to wait a while as they only get deliveries every month from their parent company in Switzerland. They phoned Monday afternoon to say the concentrator had arrived so I drove across the Queen Elizabeth Bridge and the A2 to the Medway Industrial Estate where they are based.

Twisties are used to decorate beads and can be simple or more complex ones of more than two colours. I've finally succeeded in making two good twisties thanks to a tutorial at Aussie Beadmakers.
If you click on the complex twistie link, it will get you to the tumbleweed site.
The first twistie is
Glass Twisties
Because the dark blue and black used were very similar colours,my second twistie was lavender, pale blue, pale green and black.
Second good twistie

Just for a change from beads, I thought I'd post a picture of a piece I did about 10 years ago. It's a roundel made using tracing black with an old fashioned pen and fired in the kiln to fix the , what is essentially, powdered black glass suspended in a medium. Once fired the paint is permanent and tracing black work forms the starting point for lots of the older church windows as it is one of the pigments used to add detail to a window. The outer edge of the circle of glass was sandblasted to make it show up. The full sized pattern is placed under the glass and the tracing black, as it's name suggests, is used to trace what's underneath.

I've been busy making more samples to show to prospective buyers. I'm still having problems with my oxycon as it is only giving me 2 litres of oxygen per minute for the torch so I have to be careful when using pale glass that it doesn't get "smoked" from unburnt fuel. I hope the problem goes away when I take delivery of my new oxyconAnd more beads: Another set of samples..