Serendipity, or kumihimo & beads

 Serendipity!  I love it when things come together!  Several years ago I got hooked on kumihimo, a type of braiding, and I made a lot of necklaces.  Most were done with eyelash yarns (I love the texture!) and finished into necklaces, and there were 4 of them still hanging around.  Several weeks ago I made some blown hollow boro beads and accidentally used the wrong mandrels so their holes were much larger than normal.  Last night, lightening struck!  The holes slid over the cones on the ends of the necklaces, and some of the colors matched!  I now have 2 new eye catching necklaces!

Boro hollow beads

I spent the day blowing these boro hollow beads.  My pile of black rods has just been waiting for inspiration, and I now know what I am going to do with the black hollow beads.  In March I bought the perfect stone beads for them and can't wait to put a necklace together.  Hope it turns out as nice as it is in my mind!  Boro blown hollow beads are so much easier to make than soft glass hollows because the boro is so much more forgiving!

Open torch weekend

I made these beads this past weekend at an open torch with my glass tribe, and you can see I am still stuck on black and white.  A friend of mine was instrumental in getting a new facility for lampworking up and running, and my glass tribe and I tested it out this past weekend!  It is really a new facility for the Tuscarora Lapidary Society located in Brookhaven PA.  (The website is in the process of being upgraded.)  They teach classes in all kinds of lapidary and jewelry work, and now lampworking too.  Everything worked just fine, with only a few glitches, and we are all so excited to have a place to work together again!  I am also looking forward to teaching there.

We always share new knowledge and discoveries, and have a really good time in the process.  It was so good to work together again!