Two kilns heated and life is goooooood!

Yep at the moment I have two kilns.... thats right, my new lovely big girl I have dubbed Penny (Penny Paragon) and my old, but VERY useful Aim kiln that goes on a trip to Canberra to stay forever more with my little Sister Amanda... sort of sad to see her go, but she is well needed down south and I know my sis will give her some love for sure. 

At the moment I have my Aim set up for the fusing (hence all the fusing related postings this last week...he he he) and it is currently full of glassy goodness once again, only this time I have mixed some dichro in there with the murrini, it'll be interesting to see how it comes out for sure.    Here's a pic of the sheet I threw in with just scrappy bits and pieces on it (twistie, murrini and lumps of "other") and it still sort of came out fairly cool..... I still don't know what I am going to do with this one, maybe stick some rubber bumpies on it and use it as a butter dish for visitors or something like that..... LOL

Scrap canes and murrini fused sheet

I had some interesting results from my fusing tests on small bits of sheet glass.  This one using some clear centred cane came out really interesting, although I am finding that I often like the back view (that has less murrini distortion) much better.  I will show both sides of this one, which I am going to glue a bail to and wear as a pendant I am thinking!  I am actually re-fusing a couple of these tester cabs upside down (now with the clear sheet on the top) to see if that clarifies the integrity of the murrini pictures and maybe adds some depth and magnification too.... I will be keen to check the kiln when they finish for sure!

Rear of cab

Front of cab

 On a non-fusing front, I have been madly making up murrini for Affordable (geeze I am a shocking slacker with keeping up the stock, she might need to take a stick to me I think!)  mostly because I have misplaced a whole lot of my stock murrini (some of which I had even bagged up...doh) and therefore I must pay the price of making extras.... I have really annoyed myself I tell you!

I haven't made any complex murrini for a little while now and the bug is starting to bite..... I have some plans afoot as you can see......

Lets hope it comes out as cute as I see it in my brain.  I am yet to make a murrini that I am totally happy with.... maybe that is just the nature of the beast, but at least I do see myself improving.  You might note that the plans for this owl murrini include using the same component as Loren Stump's fish scale.... I am thinking it will make some ultra-cool feathers YEAH!  Now off to buy a can of corn for shaping the bugger (those little cans are the trick to this shape Loren showed us).