Glasschallenge entry & boro love

Hmmmmm, well here I am back again! I thought I should take a small break from bending your ears about making murrini again (even though I am half way through making some boro butterflies :-) and tell you about my latest project continuing on from the glass chain on the post below.

The glass chain came about when I was trying to think of something new and different for the Glasschallenge sponsored this time by Mountain Glass Arts in the US. I decided that I wanted to make something out of boro given that I am booked to do a course with Alan Usher a talented local artist here In Australia in September and hadn't touched my boro stash for a while! After I made the glass chain I kept looking at it and in my usual way tried to think of ways to apply murrini to it..... I considered:

Sticking murrini to the links randomly, Make separate connectors for each link with a murrini in each one, encase murrini into the glass rods before making into the links, dangle a murrini off a hanging bar on one side of each link or......voila! Make a barbell shape with murrini in the ends at the right diameter that it moved around but cannot come off the chain!

Here is the result. My first try was using some home made silver glass boro murrini I had made a while ago and it turned out great. It was a reasonably difficult job juggling the weight of the chain and the barbells whilst using a cold attached punti to insert each barbell before making the second large end and also manage to avoid reflected heat onto the previously worked and cooled links etc.

I ended up spending about two days on each of these necklaces. The blue one I did first and then thought I would tart up the amber chain with some momka sunflower cane used as murrini. Here's a bit of a closeup. They have a lot of movement and make a lovely "tinkle" when you wear them, but they are a trifle heavy!