Off my back, on my feet and murrini-ing!!!!!

Oooooh, that feels so good to get back into some serious murrini-festing around here.  I have been so focussed on making stuff for my etsy store and getting side-tracked with some experiments that I have let my murrini making slide a little.  I have a whole lot of stock I need to get down to Kerry at Affordable Inspiration and in my defence I have been getting rather organised (ie. making large murrini and leaving some in component form for the next time rather than just making enough for right now).

I have also been really crook this week (that ill for those non-aussies) and have spent nearly a whole week in bed with no voice and whinging about the sore throat (mostly silently to myself to be sure) and having the frustration of needing to yell at my kids and only having a completely unsatisfying tiny squeek come out!!  Well, the antibiotics have now kicked in and the kiln is hot and its time to murrini. 

I have three constructed canes I am doing today, first off is the dragonfly cane final assembly (ie the two halves).  this is dragonfly cane number two I have made (the first one is back in the archives in this blog with some notes on how I came up with the planning for it).  The wings are a little fatter on this one and I will admit that I was not quite so anal about the graduation of colour, which I might add barely shows on the smaller diameter stuff once pulled down.  This one was made to restock and therefore, is still very nice, but not perfect.  I am hoping to avoid the "bum cheek" dilemma I had last time by making the body just a streamlined straight line.

Here is the second cane I will be putting together.  This is some more monarch butterfly cane, the last one I did I had a scare from one of my girls and accidentally put the two halves together off centre.... I am determined not to make that mistake with this one!  One thing to keep in mind with using the oranges and yellows in canes like this is that they are a bit unstable and rather prone to cracking.  Usually once they are pulled down this issue seems....er... less of an issue, but I always anneal even my final small diameter pull fully just in case.  To be honest it also makes the canes very nice to chop up neatly which is always a good thing!

And finally, I have decided that I should revisit my efforts at a kaleidoscope cane.  I am going to put these three together and fill with some other colours into a triangle shape which I will make into another component cane.... hopefully by the time I pull this out a couple more times you don't completely loose the detail, but considering that I found this one particularly ugly, I figure it can't hurt and I can keep my fingers crossed for a pleasant surprise anyway!

Half a dragonfly and its looking good so far!

Yay, I checked the kiln first thing this morning and couldn't wait to saw the rough ends off my half dragonfly cane..... what a charming way to wake the kids at 6.30am I was thinking!!!!!

Here is a pic of the two dodgy ends of the half cane I cut. Seeing as the lobes are transparent they are quite difficult to photograph unless you are looking up into the sky with some light behind. This morning is really foggy here which has been very handy, sort of like a natural version of a light tent! Anyway, as you can see I opted for a very fine thin tail with the thicker body and head. The gather was quite large before I pulled and I really struggled on my Minor torch to get the heat built up enough to pull, therefore there was a bit of distortion and the side that was supposed to be flat.... isnt! I may yet have some tears and swearing trying to get the two sides together neatly, but sometimes it just sorts itself out in the wash. One trick is to heat the first side quite a bit (making sure it is the more circular one) and pressing lightly on the marver to re-flatten the side prior to applying the second part. I will use the right side cane in this photo first and re-flatten it so it should fit together a bit better - will see!

I reckon that I will try to heat the tail end after the two pieces are together and bend it a bit to one side then refill the hole with clear. I think it will look more natural and way cuter to do it that way, but it will depend on how soft the clear is, I don't want a tiny hook on the end instead!

I am finding that increasingly I am listening to what Loren Stump told me and are leaving the final cane really thick. I am just slicing off a piece when I want one and pulling down to bead sized when I want and the good thing is that as a result I am now building up rather a nice stash of complex murrini canes in a more compact form rather than loads of long skinny rods.

I thought I might try another experiment with some of the large slices too. Once tumble polished I have some sheet 104 glass and I am going to try to fuse a slice onto that for a pendant.... might be interesting at any rate. Hopefully I won't end up with a marble on a plinth like I did once before when trying to fuse some tiny murrini onto scrap glass.....doh!

Hmmmm, maybe its time for something other than a butterfly..

Yep, I have not been butterflied out yet...... but getting there. I finished up a pink/white butterfly today and if I can get some decent sun I will get a pic and pop it up. To be honest the combination of white and pink is a bit wishy washy. I think it needs a dark colour around the lobes to differentiate them somewhat and also reckon that the wings would look better with something quite dark at the edges.... lesson learnt! I have drawn myself up a line drawing butterfly on MS Paint which I can use as a way to plan some colour combo's using coloured pencils before taking the plunge in glass. I think it might help rather than just trying random things and then being a little dissapointed.

My next project (that I am half way through) is to make.....da dada da ..... a Dragonfly. Yeah I know that anyone reading this is probably groaning to themselves, but I have approached it quite differently to the butterfly in some respects. I decided to make three slightly different graduated lobes in transparent blue, each lighter than the previous one with a black thincoat on the outside. The plan was to have the darker lobes closer to the body of the dragonfly and use the lighter ones on the outside, pop a little bit of clear in as a filler then more black thincoat around the outside to give a sort of delicate graduated blue veined effect of a delicate dragonfly's wing. Here is a pic of the plan (which I had to be very careful to pick up the right coloured lobe in correct order) and a bit of the bodgy end slice so you can see how it has gone thus far.

I have cut the good part of the cane into two segments which I will put together tonight into one side of the dragonfly. I am still thinking of how to approach the thinner tail end of the body and are inclined to leave the clear surround a bit thinner, so that I can put a slight twist in the tail when I construct the final two peices together and then fill with clear to make round...... hmmmm, still got the brain matter working on that one!