Moving blogs

At one point I had 3 blogs running (or not as the case maybe ;) ).  So I have decided to consolidate them all into my Lotti's Devon Diary one which was started when we moved down to sunny Devon 7 (or 8 or was it 6, no idea lost track of time) years ago.  It was supposed to entertain friends and family as we settled into our new downsized world, but also includes some of my glasswork, so thought I would put it all together there.  Hope you don't mind, nothing personal is posted in the diary, just things about living in this lovely part of the world and glassmaking stuff!  Might see you over there :)

Finally updated my Etsy shop

For a whole variety of reasons my poor old Etsy shop has been rather neglected of late (Chrismas fairs, stocking the shop in Bude and various other outlets; some of which are still waiting for pieces!  I suppose my new love affair with boro hasn't helped as I am probably spending alot of time playing when I should be producing pieces to sell!).  Anyway, today I finally did it and have managed to post up 4 of my borosillicate pendants on there. Let's hope they do well!

Yeah, done it!

I love making the flower marbles (it is by a method called implosion, bit tricky to explain and can be tricky to do!).  For ages I have been fairly happy with the ones I have been making, but yesterday (rather by accident) I made this and can't get the grin off my face!

Also this vortex marble which is rather nice and a vortex pendant (same colours) (I did make other things as well but these are the ones I am really really pleased with! :)

Some more work

Been playing alot with the borocillicate glass and have been making a few new pendants and some more marbles, some didn't quite work according to plan, but if I didn't tell you you wouldn't know would you ;)

Happy New Year

Personally 2013 was a bit of a mixed bag and to be honest I am very happy to see the back of it, of course no one can predict what a future year will hold, so will just have to do my damnedest to make sure that it is as good as it can be!

Glass wise it was also a year of ups and downs, but mostly ups (I am pleased to say) the second biggest up being asked to place my pieces in a Gallery in South Devon and also one in Mid Devon (which I am afraid to say I haven't managed to do yet, something on the top of the list to do in the next quarter!).   But the best thing I did last year was to go on my course up in the Lakes, I have been having such fun making marbles since then and now trying to branch out (pardon the pun) into other (firstly simple) sculptural pieces.  I am going to have to be very disciplined though and try to ensure that in this quiet period before Easter and the markets starting up again that I split my glass making time equally between playing with the new stuff and making beads and jewellery for the various outlets and the markets so that I don't up with another crazy summer working 7 days a week and no time off to enjoy this wonderful part of the country where I live!

A few photos of what I have been up to lately on the boro glass front (the new glass).

 

Venturing into pastures new!

I love glass, you know I do :) and I do enjoy making beads, but to be quite honest for ages I have really really wanted to do other things too!  I love marbles and sculptural work and baubles and, well everything and needed a bit of a boost to my mojo; sooo, about a year ago I got in contact with a lovely lady who lives a very very long way away (well not the other side of the world, but the other end of the country and from here and that is a long way!) and who makes beautiful pieces in a different kind of glass from the kind I use.  The glass is called Borosilicate or Boro for short.  It is alot harder than the soft glass that I have been using and you can do all sort of exciting things with it (things that some people argue you can do with soft glass to an extent) but you need ALOT more heat to melt it.

I have been trying to get up North to visit this lady for about a year, but with one thing and another I just couldn't make it, until this week!  Today I should be at market, but after two days tuition and two days driving (just under 800 miles round trip, but worth every single mile!) I badly needed a rest, so here I am writing this and trying to focus my brain!

I have had the most amazing two days with this lovely, kind, hardworking, talented and wonderful teacher who wouldn't let me give up when I threw a 'I can't do it tantrum'!  If you want to see what she does have a look at her website A Flame with Desire. Not to say that working with Boro is necessarily hard (well of course it all depends on what you are trying to do and I don't want to put people off who might be thinking of having a go), but it really is very different, lots of techniques I thought I knew I almost had to relearn and you do need to get that glass HOT, REALLY HOT!  It has been an exciting two days and now the fun starts as I look to playing more with this great glass over the quiet months of winter so that next year (hopefully) I will be able to branch out more with this work.

Before I include photos of a few of the things I made this week, I also wanted to say a big thank you to the lovely owners of the fabulous B&B where I stayed Howe Farm.  They were so very kind and helpful, the room was lovely with fabulous views and the whole place was very comfortable.  I would strongly recommend it to anyone wanting to stay up in the Lake District. Here is the view from the B&B :) 

Not good photos I am afraid as the light today is bad, but judging by the forecast it isn't going to get much better so hopefully you can see these (I did make some other things, but either I really can't get decent photos or really they are techniques that need quite a bit more practice that I haven't included them ;).  The 'trees' are great fun to make, you can really get into the 'zone' making these, this is just a little one (rather reminiscent of some of the pruning we have been doing round here recently!).  I am very pleased with the marbles, the sparkly one is lovely (not normally my colour but I am pleased with it) and the flower implosion one I am very proud of; implosion is the name for the technique used to make it and I have tried to make these before with soft glass and failed, but I am very pleased with this one (not perfect but not a bad start, I shall definitely be making more of these). :)

Been a bit quiet recently

Sorry, been a bit quiet recently on here, crazy time has started again with the start of the holiday season, the workshop/studio down in Bude is busy and I now only get to have one day a week in my home studio and need to get a good load of stock made up as soon we shall be moving house and all my kit will be packed away for a couple of weeks (while we work out exactly where I am going to go in the new house - you would have thought we would have sorted this early on when we viewed and we did, but have changed our minds and I think it is going to be one of those 'let's work it out when we get there' scenarios!  

I have been playing with a tutorial from the lovely Gems in Bloom using lots of silver again.  Here are a few photos of pieces that are currently in my Etsy shop. :)