Picture Perfect

Here's the result of my New Year's eve session in the hot shop. This is the candy dish that survived. Looks good? Go back and read my Happy New Year blog and you'll see this is the one I initially didn't like! It came out of the annealer a lot better than I remember it going in.

I wish I could do a better job photographing my glass. I have to admit that even with not so good photography this dish looks really good. Sometimes I even impress myself.

On Thursday evening I made another candy dish that looked like this one but experimented with putting on a cookie foot. I never did one of those before. For a first attempt it didn't come out too bad but I'm never going to publically release a photo of it. Let's just say it looks like a first time piece. A few more experiments with cookie feet and I just might have it. I think the larger dishes look good with feet. And some cane. I also managed a perfectly round and perfectly flat plate. We'll use it as a cake plate. I just started doing plates and some days I get great plates. Some days I just add to the cullet pile.

Today was a cullet pile day. I tried working too large for our glory hole and stuff just barely fit. It is hard to do a proper spinout when there's about a quarter inch clearance thru the doors. One dish survived and I think it came out quite well despite an overly thick lip. The other crashed and burned during breakoff. The spin stank and the entire pieces wobbled off center. Ug-lee. I'm kind of glad it self destructed at the end.

As I work larger and larger pieces I'm amazed at how much heavier and hotter the glass is. Jacking is a whole new experience. I have to have someone turn pole and then take the heat on my hand as I cut in the jack line. Just a few more, may be a lot more, and I'll have this worked out to semi-perfection. Watch this space...

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I just finished A Fist Full of Fig Newtons by Jean Shepherd. For those not in the know Jean is the creative source for the movie
A Christmas Story which is typical of his story-telling style. Fig Newtons made for some great fireside reading when not tending to life's needs or thinking of something else to create in the hot shop.

Excelsior! You Fathead!

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So go ahead and check it out. Tell them I sent ya!