Glass Blowing Birthday!

My birthday was on Saturday, the 10th, and James asked me what I wanted to do. We had always seen a guy at festivals and markets that has a glass blowing business right on the outskirts of Astoria, and it just so happen that a few weeks ago we saw a laddie at our local Sunday Market advertising and selling blown glass. We got the information and I told James that is what I wanted to do. So he set it up and on Friday we went out there for a little over 2 hours, while my friend Kelli, watched Teagan. Ya, date night, no baby! We had a great time, and are thinking about going back there for James' birthday, in November, to better master our skills, make glass balls, and eventually make mugs. This was a lot harder then you think. it is a many step process, and we didn't actually "blow" any glass. We made 8 egg shape paper weights, 4 each.

Clyde and Chris own Fernhill Glass.

Chris was a great instructor, who was very patient with us.

This is the small studio that we worked in.

Safety First!
(I think this is such a funny picture of James!)

This is James with the rod with glass gathered at the end. You can see a small orange ball at the end of the rod.

From the picture above we would take the glass and stick it into that orange hole to melt the gathered glass, while tuning the rod, always tuning! you have to always be turning the rod so that you don't loose your shape.

Then we would bring it to this table to shape the glass and cool it.

We would do that many times, heat and shape. We would also add color to this process and then melt in the color.

From that station above, we would come sit down, while turning the rod, to twist the glass.

Here Chris is assisting James while he takes these huge tweezers and twists the glass.

Close up of the twisting.

After the twisting, Chris would gather more glass to go over it. Then we would have to shape it with wet newspaper into a nice smooth shape.

Once you have shaped it, we would take these Jacks and start our line for the bottom of our egg.

The last station is to bring our egg over to Chris so that she can knock it off the rod.

My turn!

This is the first station. It is soooo hot that you have to wear sunglasses for protection. It was challenging to have to gather the glass, you wouldn't really know if you had any on the end of the rod 'til you brought it out. Then figuring out the right amount, too much or not enough to get you started.

Next.

Shaping and cooling.

The orange show you how hot the glass is!

It was hard to multitask, with remembering to constantly be turning the rod, using the jacks with just the right amount of pressure and not burning yourself!

Posed picture, but remembering to still be turning the rod.

Time for Chris to knock off my egg.

The next day we had to go back out there to sand the bottom of our eggs and to engrave them. Here are our eggs!

You can click on the pictures to see them closer up!

We had a great time out there, and we are happy with how they turned out!

Thanks babe!