Oooh, Shiny!

Learning about Fusing Glass

So, I accidentally bought a kiln last month. I've been thinking about this for a couple of years, and the fact that I have my brother as a live-in tutor for two months finally pushed me to get one. There are many things one can do with a kiln, like glass fusing, annealing glass beads, enameling, and firing precious metal clay.

Why, yes. I do intend to try all of these.

I'm focusing on the glass for now, so I can take advantage of my brother's experience. Here's the first fused piece I made:

It's an original design, created years ago from one of my photos of a dogwood. I've used the same design for quilting, and am making an appliqued quilt from it.

Here's a closer shot that shows the texture of the centers:

This one went so well, I immediately made another one, from a different design from another photo:

I think this one needs some tweaking, but I'm pretty happy with it and will be trying it again with other colors.

Adventures in Glass

My brother is out here for the better part of this winter, helping us with some meaty projects around the house. He's also exerting considerable influence on me to act on my latent interest in working with glass.

He's been giving me soldering lessons, and I've been making these little glass ornaments:

They're quite simple to put together with pre-cut bevels, some origami paper, and copper foil like you would use for making a stained glass panel. 

The other project I'm working on is 3-D: a star-lantern based on an icosahedron. The first step is making 20 points out of 3 triangular bevels each. Once these are assembled, I need to figure out how to join them into the lantern shape.

What, me start with a simple, beginner glass project? :)