Gettin' Ready

The Countryside Artisans' Spring Studio Tour is nearly here (this weekend). I've been once again cranking things out, my creative juices flowing and my hands busy. I've been dying up some new Blue Faced Leicester roving. I know why this fiber is so popular now. It has a beautiful sheen to it and is sooooo soft.

A brand new colorway...Lobster Bisque, a blushy peach with a hint of pale yellow.

My new luscious yarn, 'Hapiness', a combination of 4 complementary yarns. Mohair, my hand dyed Tango, a novelty ribbon and 'Sparkle'. Each skein of yarn will come with a free shawl pattern and a fused glass brooch.

The brooches are fired in my little kiln in the studio. I first cut the glass...

and put decorative frit, stringers and dichroic glass on top.

My cute kiln has a heating platform just 4" x 4" so I can only do 4-6 brooches or 12 buttons at a time.

It heats up pretty fast though, about 20 minutes to get up to nearly 2000 degrees.

Yikes! That's hot! I wear thick leather gloves, lines with fleece while I handle the kiln at that temp.
The glass is a hot, molten blob. The cooling down takes much longer.

But soon they are cooled and ready for a pin back, label and for sale.

I purchased some new glass recently and was excited to see how the buttons would come out, due to the many colors in the glass. Well, I was pleased.

A new spring scarf, nuno felted on silk chiffon.

Hope you can make it out. I'll post more tomorrow to try to entice you.