Penultimate Glass Blowing Class

Don't you just love that word?!?!  My grandfather taught it to me when I was in lower school and I try to use it AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.  Any whooo ... who would believe that we only have one more glass blowing class.  During the first 30 minutes or so we got a tour of the cold shop so we would be able to finish our pieces in the coming weeks.  Basically it is a room filled with all kinds of machines that will help us smooth out the rough edges and if we desire polish our glass.  The great part is that we can schedule a time (for FREE) to go and finish out piece, so even though we finish blowing next week I will still get to finish the last of the cups/bowls. 

Today my team and I were on a roll!!  I was able to bang out my first cup in about 20 minutes.  Some of the ones we made last week were pushing 40, so this was a HUGE improvement.  We also got to experiment a bit with color which was fun.  I decided to keep the first one simple i.e. no color and for the second one I got crazy and added some blue swirls. 

The class and half of the upstairs work space

I was also "that girl" who decided to whip out my camera and takes some pictures.  

First you gather a bit of glass and marver it down to take out some of the heat/gain control (one of my partners, Gabby at work)

Then you get a starter bubble going

After some steps in between like getting a second gather, getting all the glass heated to one temp, using one of the blocks to form the glass into a cohesive ball, putting in a jack line and a bit of air to form a bubble, it is time to head back to the marver and cool down the bottom (pictured below) to gain control and make sure you have enough glass on the bottom to later transfer it to a punti 

 The slowly adding some air to make the bubble bigger. 

Sadly this was the last step we could photograph because for the next few ones it is all hands on deck as one partner blows and the other helps form a flat bottom before the whole thing is transferred to a punti.  My post from last week has a link to a website which outlines the steps REALLY well so you should check it out!

Pictures to come next week of today's creations!!