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!