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!

Murrini Fest - addicted to making murrini ;-)

Yep, I have always been fascinated with murrini.... always!

For those who do not know what murrini are, it is where you construct a picture in glass then heat and stretch out into a cane. When you slice the cane there is the picture in each slice and you can insert these into your other glass creations - like little tiny works of art! For anyone who has had the hard candy that has a picture in it or fancy sushi then you have a good idea of how its done.

I started making myself some murrini when I had only been lampworking for 6 months eventually I graduated to making complex face canes and feeling rather pleased with myself until I did the Loren Stump course last year and learnt how to do it so much more easily and with better results. Its a bit embarassing to look back at the early attempts now and to think of the dodgy pulled where I ended up with a thick stringer between two dogbones of glass!

I have been making lots of aquarium or ocean related murrini over the past 12 months and last night made some black tip reef sharks and some leafy sea dragons too. I am still in the mood for making some multiple pull complex cane murrini, but have yet to decide what I want to do (I have made toy police cars, swimming frogs etc. before but want something brightly coloured and interesting).

I have also decided to write up a fairly comphensive tutorial on different ways of using murrini - this is not going to be an item that I sell or anything (I wouldn't be so presumptuous) but loads of people ask how to use them and it would be easier to have something written with some pics! I might have to see if some lampy friends could proof read it for me and try it out to see how clear I have been.

Easter Saturday and the house is empty - three girls gone shopping with Dad......YAY!!!!