The lazy days of summer

August has been spectacular, but the long summer days are getting a bit shorter and it was nice to get a bit of badly needed rain.  Some weeks were too warm for working on beads, and some new perennial garden additions came my way, so creating new flowerbeds for those took some time, but their flowers will reward me for years to come.

I made a string of black beads with starry white flashes to honor the Perseid meteor shower, which makes its annual appearance around August 12th.  One of them promptly split in two, but that makes a cabochon pair for earrings.  If a bead splits it usually means it was not cooled down slowly.  They usually break right away if they are going to, but now and then one surprises me and breaks long after being made.  At the end of the season the year’s crop goes into the oven for the annealing process, a heat treatment that strengthens and tempers the glass.

starry night

September ending

Summer has continued through September in Seattle with hardly any rain, which we badly need.  The warm weather allows me to continue beading.  The shorter days mean that if it gets dark while I am at the torch, an assortment of insects such as those giant crane flies might get in and buzz around me.  If they are drawn to the flame they are toast.

red white and blue

Here are a couple new rows of handmade beads:  The ever popular red and black, colors that are just made for each other.  Of course they have tiny hints of gold.  Click on the photo for a closer view.

The dark blue beads were made on 9-11, the 11th anniversary of the attacks on our country.  They have a black core, layered with translucent red which is nearly invisible against the black.  Above that float specks of blue and periwinkle, with hints of white or white specks of sand and clear encasing.  They are a subtle red, white and blue but the colors themselves can represent mourning, fire, police, firemen, lost souls.  With hints of green and purple the sorrow is the color of a bruise.

A mourning cloak butterfly stopped by, a rich deep brown with yellow accents.

mourning cloak

Mr Mo stopped to check out another project in the works.

what's that Mo?

Summer crop of beads

summer beads 2012

This summer I have been mixing some custom colors by blending and stirring several colors together.  Browns can be especially tricky so by making several custom shades and blending them I have come up with some beads that resemble wood grain.

Another challenge was trying to match the color and shape of some green beads that were missing on a necklace a friend hoped I could repair.  I did not get an exact match but the unusual shape was fun to experiment with.

Here is a photo of some of the recent beads.  The round ones have touches of a bright greenish yellow called Uranium Green.

Click on the photo for a closer view.

Another glorious sign of summer are the crop of sunflowers.

summer sunflower

Playing with fire

Bead making season is underway at last.  The optimum temperature range for  lamp working glass is between 65 and 80 degrees F, below that range and the glass is too chilled to melt properly, and above that range the artist tends to melt.

Spring and warmer weather arrived long ago but playing in the garden won out, the lawn needed mowing and the vegetable garden had to be planted.  Now with summer here I can finally make time for playing with fire.

Below are a few photos of bead making in progress:  you wrap an initial core of glass onto the steel rod and marver that into a cylinder, then add additional colors on top.  Here I am using a technique to capture a small bubble of air by making a dent in the glass with a sharp steel tool, and then covering the dent with clear glass.

Seattle has a new glass museum, the Chihuly Glasshouse and garden will be an inspiring place to visit.

adding molten glass to the bead

poking dents into the glass

cooling the bead away from the flame

Snowy sunrise

Winter is just around the corner now, and Mount Rainier is wearing the winter robes of white, looking especially chilly in the dawn light.

Mt Rainier sunrise

Bead making season wound to an end with the warm weather and a series of warm to hot pink beads.  I have some special rods of pink glass that is called “Striking Pink.”  Before you heat the glass it looks clear, but once it has been heated, or “struck” then it changes color dramatically.

These were hot pink with touches of amber or uranium green, making them a bit warmer.

bubblegum pinks

Beads make wonderful gifts, as do handpainted silk scarves.  Check out my friend Lisa Chitwood’s artwork at India Denali Designs on Facebook.

Ocean’s calling

beading in progress

Enjoying blue beads again, I am working on a new wrap in aqua colors.  Here are pictured some seed beads in tubes and the tray, the tiny needle used for the peyote stitch fringe, and two handmade beads on a stainless steel rod.

The royal blue wrap was made earlier and I have the basic strand assembled for the aqua blue necklace.  It has three handmade Aura Sun Arts beads in the seafoam blues that remind me of tropical oceans.

seafoam blues with a bit of fringe

Here it is with the ruffled fringe of smaller seed beads added on.  I may add some fringe to the right side of the strand just to see how that looks.

I have not been to the beach in a long time, but I take a look at Hempstead Beach on Long Island New York, by webcam when I want to pretend.

Click on either photo for a closer view.

Annealing glass beads

a kiln full of beads

Here we have a kiln full of handmade beads ready for annealing.  Annealing is a method for heat treating the beads to make them less likely to break.  Annealing is also used in metallurgy to make metals less brittle.

After several hours in the hot kiln, the beads reach 960F and are then allowed to cool slowly.  Now they are ready to release into the wild.

Glass is still glass, so a bead might break if dropped.  It is also wise to avoid thermal shock to glass beads, so if you were wearing a glass bead while sunbathing and then jumped into a cold swimming pool it could have unhappy results.

Armed Forces Day

Today is Armed Forces Day, thank you to all who serve.

Land of the Free

My front porch has flown a flag for the past ten years, and now there is a bit of bunting on the railing as well.  Sometimes the local school band practices marching on my street, not a real parade, just the flavor.

Spring is here, the days are getting warm enough to start making beads again.  Glass prefers working temperatures above 65 degrees.

Here are the first new beads of the season, on the rod at the bottom of the photo.  They are smaller than my usual beads shown at the top.  In the center of the photo are some of the stock glass rods used to create the beads.  I am needing smaller accent beads, and am also experimenting with a larger steel rod which results in a bead with a larger hole.  Click on each photo for a closer view.

first beads of the year

Black with moonstone

black, gold and blue focal bead with moonstone accents

This week’s handmade Aura Sun Arts creation features a focal bead with a black core, drifts of metallic gold and bluestone, and captive air bubbles encased in clear glass.

The lentil shaped moonstone accent beads along the necklace have their own mysterious hints of blue and gray.  So sophisticated!

It measures 18 inches; the balance of smaller seed beads are in colors of matte and oil blacks and gold.

Click to see it close-up for true appreciation.

To learn more about the optical properties of moonstone, you will find the Wiki entry on adularescence is most enlightening.

Festive beads

Festive set

Today’s featured beads are on the festive side.

The three large encased glass cylinder beads were hand made at Aura Sun Arts as a matched set; they have air bubbles, traces of gold and bright splashes of colors inside.  The largest measures 16 x 14 mm and is strung on an 18 inch necklace with a double strand of accent and seed beads in the same colors.

The matching earring beads measure 14 x 11 mm and dangle on shepherd hooks.  Click on the image for a closer view.

This morning’s broadcast of Sunday Morning on CBS featured a segment on “Beads of Courage” an organization that donates beads to children with serious illnesses.  They accept donated beads and have a page that details what beads they especially need.  I look forward to creating some special beads for them.  Either link will get you to the video of the segment that was aired this morning.

For the children involved, having a necklace that details their treatment milestones is a tangible way to be proud of their courage.