More, more, more

Every time I show a Chalcedony bead I think of the Andrea True Connection song "More, more, more". Showing my age there methinks!


Are you all getting sick of it yet? Chalcedony I mean! I almost wish that I was - but no such thing! I discover something different every time I work with it, & I just love every little thing I discover. This glass has taught me so much & allowed me such a vast amount of freedom that I feel as if I owe it big time.

The minimal investment in comparison to other silver glasses, has allowed me to relax without fear of wasting money if something doesn't work as anticipated. Heck - if I'm truthful this costs me less by weight, than getting a 1/4lb of one of the Vetrofond oddlots, or most of the CiM range.

I've relaxed a lot & been able to focus my attention on form, shaping, ends & all those little things that needed improving, due to working with this glass. Knowing that it will do something, no matter how long I work it in the flame has relieved me of the juggling act that was associated with trying to maintain a design & shape, have nice puckered holes & tidy ends - without risking losing any design elements by the repeated marvering required at times.


Because of the strike cycle of this glass, I have learned patience & how to work slower. I have an gained insight into heat control that I never had before. I have learned to read the heat of glass & when it is ready to be marvered or pressed.

Because of this my skills have improved immensely. I still struggle with even ends on tube beads, but that too will come. I finally feel as if I am 'getting there'. It's amazing what relaxing can do!

Getting in the Groove

Thoughts of days at the beach (minus the bitter wind) prevail. With those thoughts follow a new species of shell.
A Fantasy shell, in Chalcedony ....what else?

Chalcedony Unplugged

Unaulteradted & unedited. No wonder I love this stuff!

Tabs In Chalcedony

I have so much to photograph that it's just not funny!
The thing is I don't feel like photographing anything. Actually I dont feel much like doing anything at all.....except melting more glass.

A bit of playing with a different shape in Chalcedony ;o)

After a long search

I finally (& inadvertently) find a backdrop that makes the chalcedony beads just pop!

Great colour & wonderful light absorption resulting in crystal clear eadges on the bead with no pesky reflection.

Of course the downside is that it sheds, is tempramental, knocks things over & moves right when you have everything set up & about to depress that shutter button.

I guess the search is still on ....

Do You Wig Wag?

My first attempt at a wig-wag (some call them switchback canes), the alternative to a twistie....& might I add a tad more difficult to achieve.




From where I'm looking - they can only get better ;o)
This is going to take some practise!!

Rockin' The Chalcedony

Just frit over clear & Oh so pretty!

Some Days

even when it is rainy & freezing cold, & you are feeling very sorry for yourself because you are just so not a cold appreciating type of person - something happens to warm up every cell in your body.

Last Thursday was one of those days for me.

A couple of weeks earlier, my friend Rose had come up for the day to stock up on supplies for her wonderful jewellery designs. Lucky me, because she started her stock up with my beads. In the course of her looking at some of the Chalcedony beads 'up close & personal' I had shown her a few of the earlier ones, where I was more interested in getting some colour of of my new favourite glass than paying too much attention to great shaping, perfect ends & such.
Technically they were 'seconds', but each had something to recommend them....perhaps I was emotionally attached, but those I was keeping.

Having mentioned this to Rose, she suggested I give them to her & she would make me something. Oh yeah - that really appealed!

Rose asked what I would sort of design I would like. Being really helpful I said "a necklace", even though I knew she wanted a bit more to go on than that.

I am very aware of how easy it is to compromise a designer/artist of any sort by providing a set criteria. Having been on the other side of it I know how it can inhibit a persons creativity when they have to many 'guidelines' to follow.

I eventually said "make it asymmetrical, edgy & longish". But the main reason is that I was happy to provide minimal idea's of my own is that Rose was going to be the designer of this necklace - not I.
For me it was a no brainer, I like Roses work & I always like designs made by other people more than those I make myself. Perhaps my idea's are too fixed & I'm not flexible enough to compromise, who knows. Or perhaps I just prefer the sentiment behind things that have been made by someone else with me in mind.

Any which way, it paid off.... & then some!
When I unwrapped the parcel I almost cried.lol! Beautifully packaged, I unwrapped layer after layer of paper, tissue & padding to see a necklace that was simply perfect. You see it had no choice but to be perfect - aside from my loose guidelines of what I would like I had no expectations. I hadn't formulated any idea's in my mind of what I would do if it were me, or how I would like to see those beads presented.
This was the "asymmetrical, edgy & longish" & so very much more.

I put it on & there it stayed all day....& the next day.... & Saturday when I wore it to work.

Chalcedony Beads & Gunmetal Findings - Designer: Rose Patterson

Thank you Rose!
(& I will get a better photo of this)

Working with G109 - Chalcedony

There is nothing worse than wanting to make a small spacer bead out of a striking glass & managing to lose the colours.
This is 'pretty much' the way I work the Gaffer G109 - Chalcedony in all of my beads, big & small. It's just with smaller spacer beads you have to be more careful about how hot you get it before the whole heap of glass drops off of the mandrel - or loses shape beyond repair.

I watched once, as a larger 'beige' over struck bead regained some wonderful shades of blue while I was gently reheating an end in order to touch up the shaping. "A-Ha!"

You do get more intense results colour wise if you work really hot, you also get a lot more veining & a more mottled effect in the surface glass. However it is not necessary to work it white hot in order to get colour.
Work it cooler, strike it gently & you will get the smoother, creamy looking finish with subtler colouring.

So, in brief, here it is:

• 1. Get the glass on the bead. There is no need to rush it.

• 2. You can see that by the time it is on there the glass at the outside edges has started to strike already.

• 3. At this point I turn my flame down & work in closer to the torch face & just get the glass to a glowing orange.

• 4. I take the bead out of the flame & let it cool until all glow is gone - checking it somewhere out of the direct light in order to detect this. Under the work bench works well. Then, with the flame turned back up to normal I introduce the bead back into it & strike it.

• 5. Back into a smaller flame & repeat the process.

• 6. After the second strike cycle.

• 7.Once you have the transparent brown 'bloom' showing - it will strike mostly to purple & pink tones. Further heat/cool/ strike cycles will take it back to the transparent brown & then back to purples again. This bead was re-struck as it had lost colour on the sides.

• 8.The bead went through two further strike cycles after the photo on the left (4 strike cycles in all) at no stage getting it white hot or molten enough to move.

The outside that appears brown in the photo is actually purple right through the middle.
I would just like to note that all of the photo's apart from cropping, resizing & montaging together are untouched & unedited.

The test bead below on, the other hand, went through many more strike cycles using this method, or rather one side of it did.
Using straight G109 I got the bead basic onto the mandrel & worked on shaping it. It started as a roundish glob of glass. I heated & marvered it until I had a small tube shaped bead about 36mm long & had lost most of it's colour.
The right hand side of this bead went through two strike cycles. The left hand side I continued striking until it had lost colour & then I worked on slowly striking it until I got colour back ;o)

And now for something completely different

aha - you fell for it! You'd think that with all that new glass I'd be playing with anything but Gaffer's Chalcedony. But noooooo......

New Look Website

I've been plodding away, with the help of the mailleman, giving my website a mini make-over & a new look homepage. I only wish that changing the look of a room was this easy.

Oh, did I say easy? Given some of the language colouring the air around here, perhaps I should have said 'this quick'. The homepage was completed a couple of days ago, & today I've been working on re-colouring the background for the sidebar buttons. If only I'd known then, what I know now, when I was initially creating those buttons - I wouldn't be having to start from scratch.

New Homepage with a feature on Gaffer 109-Chalcedony.

Doing it in this style, I shall have to periodically change the homepage. Hopefully it will get easier!


I expect that you thought that with the arrival of my new glass - you'd not have to read too much more about the Gaffer Chalcedony. I may have neglected to mention that I have quite a good range of Gaffer colours to try it on yet.
Maybe after work tomorrow ;o)