Brightwells Craft Market - Flyer

 I'm quite excited to announce that I'm doing my first craft market this October as part of Farnham Craft Month.

I'm part of the Farnham Creatives Network and 16 of their members have come together to run a craft market on 24-25 October - 10am-5pm at Brightwells Yard in Farnham.  A mix of artist, potters, fashion and even some fudge!

I've never done a market before and I've no idea what people might buy but I've been busy making stock to take with me.

However, we need to advertise the market so the call went out for someone to put together a flyer.  I said I didn't mind having a go, if no one else came forward.  And that's how I ended up putting together a flyer for the market, even though I don't really have any graphic design skills!

Except for not being given all the correct information in the first place, it was quite fun to put together.  I tried to make sure similar makers weren't next to each other and that the images I used showed their work to it's best.

I thought I was done when someone suggested it might need a map on the back.  Luckily that didn't take too long to add. 

 

It was all put together in free Canva and actually prints out quite well considering. 

If you're looking for Christmas presents maybe pop along for a look.  And if you're reading this after the market you can always visit my online shop.

Blown Hollow Glass Beads with Olga Alianova

The one bead I'm happy with

 

I am totally obsessed with hollow glass beads and have tried many techniques to try and make the perfect hollow beads.

Hollow beads are much harder to create than solid glass beads and there is much less room for error.

Last year I did make a couple of necklaces with hollow beads but while they look great and they are the best I can do with my skills right now (and I am happy with them) they are heavy.  So far all the techniques I've tried have ended up being quite heavy.

I continue on my quest....

Last year I saw this class come up at Tuffnell Glass, but by the time I got myself organised it had sold out!  I was gutted.  So when I saw they were running it again I booked it straight away.

Olga is a very talented bead maker and her hollow beads are amazing - and importantly very light.

The end of Day One

 

So I last weekend I drove all the way up to Yorkshire again and spent two days learning Olga's technique.

As with many things, it looks very simple until you try it yourself and then you find it is much much harder than it looks.  And I wasn't the only one!

So for much of Saturday all I managed to make were bubbles that were much too thin to keep and so went into the glass bin.  It was a very frustrating day.  I am used to having something to show for my efforts by lunch on the first day, but not this time.

The end of Day Two

 

However, by the end of the day I managed to make a couple of beads that weren't too thin and didn't crack when I put them in the cooling beads.  Maybe I was finally getting the hang of it?

On Sunday I went back without much hope.  However, I did manage to make some reasonable beads at last.  My main struggle had been working out when the first bubble of air was coming into the glass.  If you don't stop at the right time it just turns into shards.  So I was given a flexible hose to try so I could see the end of the blow pipe.  Finally I could see what was happening and stop at the right point.

 

I finished Sunday with a couple of beads I'm actually proud of.

And while I might not have the handful of beads I'd normally expect, Olga was very generous sharing her different techniques for decoration, so that's given me lots of ideas too.

Having two days to do this while frustrating was actually really good as it let me work on my techniques without having to worry about taking the dog for a walk or cooking dinner etc.  And by the end of it I could see an improvement.  But if I want to get anywhere like as good as Olga (yeah right!) it will take a lot more practice!  I mean days rather than hours. 

 

So a good weekend even if it was frustrating in places.  It was great to learn a new technique and it's always lovely to spend time with other lampworkers.

Stripy Fused Glass Dish

 

Instagram has a lot to answer for!

I saw a stripy glass dish on there ages ago and really wanted to have a go at making my own.

So when I was having a tidy in the studio and found some stringers (very thin 'strings' of glass) that someone had given me when I bought something else second hand from them, I decided to have a go. 

 

It's quite a simple idea; take a clear glass circle.  Lay lots of glass stringers across the circle.  Fuse everything together.  Lastly slump your glass circle in a mould.

I haven't done that much fusing and this is only my second go at slumping, but it all worked a treat! 

And I leant some helpful lessons - yes you can use broken stringers to make a full line, but they will separate at the break.  I think melting them together first would stop this happening. 

 

I also found out that cutting a big circle is quite hard.  I didn't have anything quite the right shape to draw round, so it's not quite a proper circle.  I do have a circle cutter, but it max's out at maybe 10cm.  So if I want to do more I either need to buy a circle cutter that will do bigger circles, or buy pre cut circles!

I also amended my firing schedule as it was set for a 6mm thickness of glass and mine is more like 4mm.  Reducing the time it sat at the top temperature seemed to work fine. 

So now I have a lovely stripy dish.  I love it, and I love how it changes in different lights.  Love when a glass project works out first time!