Thursday 30 January 2014

Falling in Love Again ....

I'm very lucky, very lucky indeed, I live only 20 minutes away from Tuffnell Glass http://www.tuffnellglass.com who supply all my lampworking glass.  I paid them a visit earlier this week, hoping that one of my all time favourite glasses would be back in stock.  My all time favourite glass (well this week at least) is CIM Stoneground - a very good warm neutral glass, it looks beautiful etched and is perfect for creating soft shoreline colours.  Unfortunately this glass is as rare as Hen's Teeth in the UK at the moment and although I have a little stash I wanted to secure some more (you just never know when these glass producers are going to pull the rug from under you and declare that a line is discontinued).

Seeing my obvious disappointment (I fell short of actual tears, but think my chin did wobble), Teresa and Becky rallied around offering me alternatives.  As Teresa handed me a bundle of Effetre Sand I think I felt something in the pit of my stomach - could this be love?  It is a beautiful smooth glass in the rod and looks very uniform in colour, whereas Stoneground has slight stridations or colour shifts within it.  I left feeling better than when I arrived as I always do - is it the glass or the chippy banter of the Tuffnell crew I expect a little bit of both, having promised to try it as soon as I could.

Here are the results of my first play with my new all time favourite glass (well at least for this week ;)), fickle?  Who me?  You can see that the lone heart here is made from Stoneground with silvered ivory shards melted in and then etched.  I have left the Sand unetched at the moment but plan to etch it later.  The shards on the heart I made with the Sand and silver foil, the two beads either side of the heart are covered in silver foil and the outer beads have Iris Orange frit on them.

I have to be honest knowing that I can get hold of this glass with relative ease and that is should be stable enough to encase (although I haven't tested this yet) has made my heart sing!  Yes I'm in love again and yes I'm in love with Sand!

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