Out of the kiln

Yesterday I came down with some kind of crud, sore throat, etc, but today I felt well enough to work on my torch for a while.  These are what I took out of the kiln tonight.  The large one is a blown bead, and it doesn't have any cracks!  That has been a problem for me, and I am not sure if it is my annealing schedule or if they are going into the kiln too cool.  The bottom left three are my new butterfly beads.  I was experimenting with silver glass stringers, and it really made a difference.  The left one fumed too much and looks dirty, the middle one didn't fume much at all, and the right one fumed enough to turn the ivory glass darker.  I like it!  The gold ones on the right are experiments with a new silver glass.  It was a pretty good day, especially considering how I felt!

Bigger blown bead

After 2 days of shoveling snow, I took a day off yesterday and made beads.  I have been anxious to practice blowing more huge beads, and this is the result of yesterday in the studio.  It is even bigger than the first one I made!  I am not sure why I am so intrigued with these huge beads, but I love them.  Thank you, Patti Cahill!