Glassblowing Workshop: Day One

I am tired. Not exhausted, but tired. Today we made caterpillars (which are just bumpy glass things we learned technique on), flowers (three!), and a paper weight. Crafting with glass is so cool. Like Guitar Hero, I found that I was not immediately good at glass technique, but there's nowhere to run in a six hour class, so I had no choice but to get better. :)

My class is really great. We have three men and two women (including me), two trainers and one intern. We get a long very well, and we're all quite positive people that it's fun to help each other out. I'll probably have more to say tomorrow after we actually BLOW glass (today was more working with glass, sans blowing), but I'm excited about tomorrow already. It's all completely outside of my comfort zone, but just so much fun. Here are some quick pics so you can get an idea (none including me).

Gathering glass on the pole.

Cooling the pole so that you can work - it gets hotter each time you gather glass.

Twisting the glass as it cools - this is the inside of a paperweight. You have to gather glass three times to make these paperweights.

Making a paperweight (color has been added).

















I forget the term, but smashing the glass on end is one step in the process of making a flower.

Pulling the glass with special tweezers to make petals.

















A very pretty flower right after breaking it from the pole (unfortunately, not mine).