Slumped Glass Progress!

So I've made a few plates, spent a whack of cash and I am still not sure what I think about the process of glass. It's very much like putting lego pieces together and melting the whole thing in the oven. But somehow I think a little less messy and the product slightly prettier! Anyway, a few of you asked about the progress of the last plates so here they are:

Blue Glass Plate, The Sequel:

It pretty much looks like the last one, doesn't it? It's still bumpy on the top so I'm not sure my little shards of glass did very much to even it out. Maybe a little.

But something else happened:

Bubbles got caught between the layers of glass and shard, and the edges of the glass aren't as rounded as they were on the last plates. I don't really mind though. It's all part of being handmade, in my opinion.

This piece is in the kiln being slumped as we speak!

The Butterfly Plate:

This one survived the slumping. Funny, I expected it to be deeper. Rumour has it a visitor to the glass studio really liked it. There is hope for this little plate!

The Rockin' Transparent Sushi Plate:

This one broke the mould. Literally. Or Mitch broke the mould. When I went in this morning to check the kilns, the mould was on the table being glued back together. I don't think you can fix broken moulds. I'm pretty sure the glue will burn off in the kiln, but Mitch is going to give it a shot anyway.

It's too bad the mould broke, because I think this plate needed a second firing. As you can see, it's only slightly bent, but the "foot" that would have stopped it from rocking never appeared. So it is literally, a rockin' sushi plate. The control freak in me is frustrated by this, because I don't really know how to fix it other than re-firing it on a broken mould.

The other weird thing is that I placed ten tiny pieces of clear glass in the kiln to be melted into pendants. I wanted to smooth out the sharp edges but absolutely nothing happened to them. Sharp, sharp, sharp. I'm perplexed. I think I might give glass a rest for a little while and pick up the paint brush again and wait to see what happens with the blue plate. The Next Naramata painting is all drawn out and ready to be painted!

XXMelanie