Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Finally, Getting Serious about The Exchange!

SuzyQ aka Susan Sheehan
started a murrni exchange on Lampworketc.
I joined, and, truly, I have been playing with murrini making because I wanted to develop my heat control skills again after being off the torch for so long.
Well, it's finally time to get serious about this because it will be getting time to mail those babies pretty soon.
Well, actually, I have plenty of time, but, if I don't get serious now, I might miss the deadline!
So, I'm finally getting serious about this exchange.
For those of my non lampworking friends,
murrini are small bits of glass that are shaped and formed in the flame and used to decorate lampwork beads.
Here's a sample from my shop.
These murrini are made from glass encased in silver and dark black lines on the side.
I won't be using them in the exchange unless I make more.

Murrini is made from cane.
After you form and stretch the glass, this is what the cane looks like.
The nippers are what I use to slice the cane.
You apply small chips to each bead you decorate with murrni.
This is a head shot of the cane and what the pattern looks like before it's cut.
Here's a shot of another cane that I made.
The ends are irregular.  I usually keep those chips for me.
Once I begin to nip the canes to make chips, the shapes become more regular.
It's amazing some of the murrni that people are able to make!
If you search Etsy, you will find some amazing works of art!
Mine is much more simple.
Here are the blue murrini chips.  They look better shaped as I cut into the cane.
I don't know what to call them.
What do you think?
These green ones have a little more of a pattern.
What should I call them?

Anyway, I am serious now.  I want to get this exchange finished and mailed to Susan before the end of September.  I sure hope I can!
This really has been fun!


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