All Chained up

Well, following on with my theme of work progression I thought I would blog about my boro chain making and its still evolving state :-)

I started making some boro glass chain work after seeing a gorgeous necklace made by a lampworking friend that was a little bit...... organic in shape.  After some serious thought I came to the conclusion that I could make chain and fairly neatly if my idea worked.... off to the torch I went!  Here is the very first boro chain I made.  I made alternating Amber and clear links, partly so I could see where I was on the job and partly because I wanted something a little different than just clear at the time!

First boro chain work - 2009

At first to get my links really neat and round I used a piece of thick walled stainless steel tubing my husband Leo got for me at a garage sale which I clamped onto my workbench.  I could then heat the rod roughly to the length I required to wrap around the tubing then finished off each link using punty's (holding the work with a rod of glass for the unitiated).  If the shape was not quite right a large diameter graphite reamer did wonders.  Then came the tricky bit.... the joining links!   I found out fairly quickly that it was easy to accidentally fuse one link to the other.... accidentally face the flame past the link you were working on and cracking another one.....etc...etc.   I quickly worked out that working up under the flame was the way to go and using a small torch like a minor made the job fairly easy to be honest.

I made the chain...... I liked the chain..... but........ the chain was boring!  Yeah, I know I could have used different colour links, but that was not challenging enough..... enter... the dongle!

Momka sunflower cane murrini dongle necklace

Yep, following a good hot shower that nicely stimulated the grey matter, I decided to insert a section of rod through each link with a small marble at each end....... oh, clearly it worked, but OMG was it a nightmare to heat.  I found at this point that fighting the weight of the glass as the necklace built was very difficult and badly complicated how well sealed the punty should be.  To overcome that I made up a little wooden stand that I could sit the majority of the work onto underneath the torch... yeah it got scorched, but I reckon it saved the work from having a cracker of a time (if you get the pun) LOL   I also found a few problems with keeping the work warm given the large volume of glass on the first marble end when putting on the second one..... yep... many a crack occurred for sure!

I tried different dongle ends as the fancy hit me... bumpy ones, helix twist ones, murrini ones:



Bumpy dongle necklace

helix dongle necklace

Its sad to say, but I went through a real "dongle" phase.... everything got dongles on it, fun and fiddly, but time to move on again.  Thats when I decided I would try making some actual chainmaille in glass.... this is a fairly simple pattern, but it turned out quite well I thought



boro glass chainmaille

At this point I decided to go back and revisit the chain links itself...... coloured chain links made out of helix twist rod came out rather nice, but was a bit busy when put all together.... so I made some work using an alternating clear link!

Blue helix twist alternating Chain links

Then I had a play with the shape of each individual link.... here is my triangle necklace.  It sits rather awkwardly off the neck, but surprisingly looks really great when worn.  Bright and different, but definitely for the person who has some real sense of self and is a little bit out there I reckon!

Triangle chain necklace



I came up with another way to decoration the chain what would satisfy my need for fine stringer work (something I actually enjoy quite a bit) and still use the boro chain.  I made a couple of these necklaces, a gumblossom floral one and this ocean themed surface decoration chain linked necklace.  They were a ton of fun to make, but incredibly fiddly and I don't even want to think about the investment in time they took me, but they came out really beautiful in the end.  I am thinking I might make myself one of these, but flowers and butterfly murrini or something similar.

A glimpse of reef

I can't really say where I am heading with this chain work, but I know I am definitely not there yet.  One of the nicest ones I made was just clear chain, with clear dongles.... it looked like drops of water around your neck.  I am thinking I might make a clear fine chained small dongled clear one next..... that might look quite nice I think!

Seaspray necklace - clear chain, clear dongles

The Sun.... the SUN.... quick!!!!

Yup, that was my catch-cry this morning when I woke up and realised that there was actually some sun showings its face this morning.  After a week of overcast rainy weather I was VERY keen to get out and photograph some beads.  It has to be said that the boro beads in particular take much nicer photos in the sun than otherwise and so dressed very sharply in Ugg boots, pyjama pants, ratty old coat and no bra with hair sticking out in all directions I armed myself with the camera, the beads and a white bust.  I am fairly sure some of the neighbours will not recover from the scene for years to come and I definitely got a few interesting looks, not all directed at the fact that I had a jewellery bust on top of Leo's car roof and was taking photos I am sure.

First off I have been making some owls out of boro lately.  This was borne from the eyeball crafting and somewhat inspired by seeing the last Harry Potter last week.  I also have to give a nod to a very talented lady called Beth Knapp Tyner who makes the most lovely owl and bird beads out of soft glass (see her etsy store here www.BethKnappTyner.etsy.com ) for inspiration.  Beths Owls are incredibly realistic and not is not at all what I am going for, but her form and colour are just wonderful.

Anyway, whilst the sun was out I took a quick pic of this dongle necklace.  It is plain with no murrini which went against the grain somewhat but it is an order, so it had to be done.  I think it came out looking a bit like drops of rain or bubbles of water and quite like it now its done.  Unfortunately making the dongles clear did not really save me much time at all which was a bit annoying.  I still have two half finished and one more to make which definitely keeps me out of trouble!

ps. I am sorry if I appear rude and don't reply, but I have not been able to post a reply on blogger for ages..... I have tried and tried and its just keeps making me log back in...... I shall try to sort it out, but in the meantime please know that I appreciate the comments greatly, thank you!

Evolution of a glass necklace

I thought I might to steer somewhat clear of the murrini fest over the last few days and have decided (finally) that I would make a couple gallery quality pieces. I have done the boro chain and dongle style before (something I dreamt of then tried and it worked quite well) and the bottom picture is one of my early efforts using some purple handmade murrini in the marbles on the ends of each dongle. This was using some 3mm chain and I kept each dongle quite short. It is really nice to feel and is actually very comfortable to wear but I did move onto larger 5mm diameter links with large dongles which were very flamboyant indeed.

I have decided to try out a slightly new style of this necklace using finer 3mm stringer chain once again, but with much longer dongle-y bits in all different lengths and colour combo's. I also resisted the urge to use murrini in the ends and instead, I am going to use little tiny helix twists (a technique learnt from the lovely Justin at imagine creations) on each end. I have made a start yesterday (well by start I mean about 6hrs of torching to get to this point) and thought I would show off how it is going. I have only done less than half of the dongles so far, but you can see it will be busy, but hopefully interesting as well.

I wanted something that still had the movement (chain and dongles all move around loose) but looked a bit busier than the fine stuff usually did.  After I finish this one off, I am thinking I might make a big chunky one again...... WAY less hours of work to do the big stuff for sure.    I will try to remember to upload a pic of the final result.  The only issue I have now is finding exactly the right clasps for these buggers.  I have made glass ones which don't feel completely safe and did find a fabulous large ornate parrot clasp design that was perfect..... just not precious metal!  I think I might buy a few large parrot clasps in sterling silver at about $20 each, it would be a bit of a waste to spend days upons days making this style to throw some cheap-arse crappy clasp on it..... it seems there is always a challenge some days!

Original dongle chain testing with murrini