Weaving glass and all that jazz!

Friday I was privileged to have a private class with my old pal Gigi! We spent the day weaving, chatting, and having a generally busy, but good day. Here's some of what Gigi did!

Gigi weaving an awesome design!

another view of Gigi's Weave!

Here's Cathy's weave! She was motivated to do one  when she saw Gigi's!

Here is what I did while Gigi was weaving... Another 25 pounds of glass was smashed all in the name of the City Year glass Vase project! Then each piece was hand clipped with the nippers to get them smaller. Don't you love what a hammer can do to 6 half sheets of glass?

This is 25 pounds of Cobalt Blue tones

Here's how the turquoise ones came out... In case you wanted to know, these were made with turquoise irid, light turquoise, aqua tint irid, clear, and a smudge of light aqua, and a pinch of light sky blue.

These are the cast discs out if the kiln, and the final shape prototype.

Today is Saturday and I taught our Essentials of Glass Fusing Class. Here's my awesome class and my demo pieces. We had a great time! I love it when new students catch glass fever!

This is a dichroic pendant fully fused and a 6" square tack fuse piece
both going in at 1325 F for a little soak!

While my class was working in the cold room I weighed out the next batch of vase discs and put them into the kiln.  Here they are... each disc is 2.5 pounds-give or take a 1/10... if you really want to know.

Hopefully these look like a very different blue then the turquoise ones above.

I'm a tad concerned that they could be too dark. I added lots of clear and lighter tones into the mix, so hopefully they'll be deep blue, but still very translucent and bright. I used true blue irid, steel blue, light sky blue, clear, flecks of turquoise irid and opaque deep cobalt blue, and left over blue gray.  Cross your fingers for me!

The next batch is green, then reds, then plum tones.  So I'm 50 pounds in on the project so far.  I'm going to cast all the disks first, then cold work them all, and then drape them all last. If anyone has any thoughts, let me know. I've never had to do 45 of something before, so any knowledgable input is welcome!

Tomorrow I have a private fine silver/argentium fusing class with a student from Corpus Christi. I'm sure we'll have a blast.

Tah Dah! Here's the Finished Bowl!

The beautiful Baptismal Bowl for Zion Lutheran Church Font is finally done. The deadline is January 11th, so I'm totally excited that I'll be able to deliver the job early. That doesn't happen often! This bowl is 16" in diameter and about 4.5" deep.

This is the front view. I wish there wasn't so much glare!

This view is just a little further up.

This view is on top, looking into the bowl.

The rim actually came out very nicely. It's always a bit of a gamble, even when you do everything right. I'll take a photo tomorrow of the bowl in the font stand in the sanctuary so you can really see it in it's home!

Also, I cut a boat load of dichroic glass today... Here's a little bite to wet your appetite!

This is rainbow, granite, ripple on back- COE 90...YUMMY!

A Dichroic Glass Field Trip!

Today Stacey and I ventured to Round Rock, Texas, just north of Austin, to meet with our buds at Austin Thin Films. Glen and Eric were jovial hosts and gave us the techie tour, which of course I loved...'cause I love all that physics and chemistry stuff. We got up close and personal with the vacuum chambers, which I totally could have curled up and taken a nap inside of...'cause again, I love the science stuff. I tried not to act like the biggest science geek of all time. I think I kept my cool. I actually think Stacey was fascinated, which was kind of surprising, since molecules aren't really her bag. I, on the other hand think the periodic table is science porn!

Too flipping' Cool!!!!!

So after the tech show and tell was over we set to it! KilnFrog.com is now a Dichro Magic distributor, and Wired Designs will carry the full line of products too. We really do like buying local! So here's a little peek in on our shopping experience.

Shopping for 2" x 8" in all the standard and premium colors on black and clear!

Yes... We will be selling the muy famouso scrap bags!

Pulling scrap in Coe 90 textures and Patterns!

We'll have the Magic Boxes and Sample Sets too!

We don't reopen until January 3rd, so theres lots to do with all of our loot before we're ready to sell it.