Reflections on Beadmaking: Take Two

The finished collection,

This last beadmaking session was devoted to trying designs I had yet to attempt, hone the skills I had begun to develop, and attempt to replicate at least one Viking bead. I must say, making beads has a slow learning curve. I honestly feel that my skills improved marginally, if at all, with this additional session. For this session, we obtained a few colours similar or exact to those found in Viking beads: dark blue, yellow, and green (almost lime-green). We finished off the session removing our beads from the mandrel, which is a skill in and of itself.

I began by attempting to make a simple ring bead with an eye design. I did not really attempt dots last time around, so I figured I should this time. As this was a first time attempt, I did not use authentic colours, as we had to purchase those and were in limited supply. My dot colours were light blue over a white-ish colour. The blue kind of concealed the white.  My attempt was semi-successful. At first, it was difficult figuring out how to release the dots without having a giant chunk of stringer hang on. Once that was mastered, it was extremely difficult to keep them uniform in shape and size (I did not succeed at       this). Overall, this is one of the easier types of bead designs to make, but still hard to perfect.

Next I made two beads that were true to colours the Viking's used. Noticeably, dark blue and yellow appear to be a favoured colour combination. Thus, I attempted to make two more ring beads using this combination. I just attempted dot patterns this time, so as to hone my uniformity skills. I did not succeed. As you can see my dots are rather pathetic. Slooow learning curve. (Or maybe beadmaking is just not for me).

This is a rectangle bead, which with the help of a clamping tool, was much easier to make uniform. I burnt the yellow glass pretty bad, as evidenced via the grey swirls on the glass. Despite having practised wave thread decorating in the last session, this bead obviously shows I have not improved at it.

This next bead is my collared bead attempt. Easy to make the middle portion, difficult to get the two ends uniform. I applied a separate colour to each end and getting the exact amount of glass on each end was difficult. I also burned the white glass, which is extremely easy to do with propane torches. I would guess that the Vikings had less of an issue with this with their clay furnace, as it was fed by a bellows, but I would assume it would still be a possibility. My wave design is getting slowly better, but is still not great (it flat-lines on the other side). Also, I noticed in some of my beads that an odd orange colour was appearing. I have no idea what this is from. Burning perhaps?




These next two beads were my attempt at replicating two Viking beads. The first (on the left) was supposed to be a ring bead with a double wave design. The wave design was supposed to be white underneath and solid red on top. We only had these odd white-ish stringers and transparent red so I had to use those instead. Following the exact wave pattern set down originally was difficult, and even more difficult was ensuring your top wave was thinner than the bottom one. I also ended up making a half sphere bead with a half ring bead here (note how it sits flat). I have no idea how I didn't catch this. I feel like at this point my patience was running a bit lower... The cylindrical bead (below) was supposed to be a  red spiralled thread decoration with white waves in between the spiral. The spiral itself was a bit of a failure as the stringer kept breaking in the fire, thus causing breaks in the design.

When beginning my wave decoration, a chunk of stringer broke off onto my bead, ruining that idea, so I opted for dots instead.  On a positive note, I have been taking glucosamine lately and my joints were doing fine at this point! Although at some points my arm began to hurt from holding the glass rods in certain positions while applying the molten glass. You can`t win it all, right?

This bead is a lime green colour we noticed was used in our books. It was my first attempt at a spiral bead, and was a marginal success. It kind of resembles a spiral, maybe? It was hard to keep the consistency of the glass the same so that application of the molten glass onto the mandrel was even. Rose has a lovely spiral bead! She seems to have mastered that technique.



This was my last bead (right). The actual bead shape was a total failure because the clay came off the mandrel (I think I got it too hot), and thus the glass would just spin with the mandrel and I could not do much to shape it. However, the wave design on this was my best! Well, now that I look at the picture it looks kind of pathetic still, but I swear it looks better in real life! Although kind of thick, it is actually a wave design all the way around the bead, instead of flat-lining at points.


Finally, the mandrel release. This was a bit difficult to do without breaking the beads (some of which are prone to break because of improper cooling, thickness, etc). You have to grip the mandrel with something that will prevent it from turning (we used a monkey wrench). We then used pliers with tape wrapped around them to gently twist the bead until it released from the mandrel. You then twist it off by hand. Remember how I said my joints were doing well? Yah, no longer. The constant twisting motion of the bead to release it from the mandrel was agony on my joints, and even bothered some of the other girls. See the video in our "Take Two" post-note how I switch hands. It does not look like a lot of motion, but it really is. Also this was one of the easiest beads to take off, some were really stuck on there and required a few minutes of twisting before they released. Ultimately, I would say my skills increased marginally in this session, and the quantity of time spent both making the beads, and honing your skills is immense.