BeadandButton Show Lets Us Play With Fire

I remember as a little girl being fascinated by the glass on display in a southern Ohio glass factory. I've always been drawn to glass, particularly glass artwork. The beautiful glass beads used in jewelry design was one of the things that made me want to attempt jewelry making. When an opportunity came to learn lampworking, I jumped on it. One of the venues the iKandies team has used to learn new techniques like lampworking has been by attending the annual Bead&Button Show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Members of the iKandies team have been attending for four years and we thought we would share one of our classes with you in this episode of iKandiesJewels.

The class we attending was a beginning class in lampwork. According to Wikipedia, the definition of "lampworking" is:
Lampworking is a type of glass work that uses a gas fueled torch to melt rods and tubes of clear and colored glass. Once in a molten state, the glass is formed by blowing and shaping with tools and hand movements. It is also known as flame working or torch working, as the modern practice no longer uses oil-fueled lamps.

Our instructor provided us with the tools we needed, as the photo shows.  This included a hot head torch, metal table surface, marver, mandrels, fiberglass blanket and glass rods, to name a few.

In the next three pictures we see Jill, Debi and I demonstrating the techniques we learned to melt the end of the glass rods, wrap them around a mandrel, and shape them into round, oblong or square beads.

We also learned to layer colors of glass and add dichroic glass pieces to add depth and sparkle to the bead.

The beads can be cooled in a fiberglass blanket, but in order to reduce chipping and breaking, they must be annealed in a kiln.

Although creating beautiful pieces of lampwork glass can't be learned in a day, we benefited from the learning experience.   Our beads were far from the beautiful pieces on display at the BeadandButton Show but we learned alot from the class.  We learned about the properties of glass, how various colors heat at different temperatures, how to work with the hot glass, and even how to fix mistakes!  We truly have a greater appreciation for the artisans who create their beautiful pieces using this technique!