Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Tuesday evening

I don’t know about ‘Passing the Flame’ but I’ve been doing a bit of ‘Thowing the Flame’ today. Oh yes the new Spark lighter briefly turned my torch into a high velocity flame thrower, again. It’s only my first day of using it but I’m obviously doing something wrong. Cindy Jenkins in her book ‘Making Glass Beads’ says this about spark lighters “These tend to be a little more difficult to use than matches and may require a bit of practice”, no **** Sherlock!

It hasn’t been a marvelous day making beads. My zone was here big time and I made some gorgeous beads, but every time I went to put those focals in the kiln I managed to clonk what was next to it, or put them in too hot and then clonk the adjacent one making a blip. Oh man, sometimes you just get those days, I decided to quit earlier than I would normally on a Tuesday, before I do anymore damage to my precious works of art.

Tuesday morning

I’ve got a new toy, nothing particulary exciting, just a piece of equipment to let me light my torch flame safer than what I’ve been using previously. But you wouldn’t have thought so an hour ago. I managed to turn my torch into a flame thrower with huge flames coming at me and licking at my left hand which was controlling the gas knob! I tried again to see what would happen and the same thing happened……I’ve singed the hairs on my left hand and had a lovely smell of burnt hair lingering on my hand and in my studio for the last hour. I think a bit more practice is in order. OK so I need to go back out and light up again now, must process information and work out how to do this safely in the next 5 minutes………..