Modern Medievals- Lampwork Glass Beads With a Historical Twist

It's time to introduce a new 'line' of handmade lampwork beads- 'Modern Medievals.' What the heck does that mean, you may ask? This bead grouping is made up of beads that are designed using techniques that have been around for millenniums using basic tools and glass colors. These are not copies of historical finds, but rather somewhat modernized versions of these beads that will encompass some different shapes and color combinations. Here are a few examples:

Stacked dots or 'horned' beads. This style was extremely popular during the warring states period in China. Though first imported there from countries to the west such as Egypt and Mesopotamia, the popularity of these beads encouraged the Chinese to begin making their own. These beads are made up of different colors of glass stacked one on top of the other and melted together. They have a lot of texture, which makes them a bit fun to wear. Most of the historical finds are round. My beads will encompass other shapes, like these conical beads.



'Eye' beads are a close relative of the stacked dots; as a matter of fact, stacked dot beads are also often referred to as eye beads. In the classical version of the eye bead, the dots are melted together. The eyes can be made from just two colored dots melted together, or many. The two beads in this photo could both be considered 'eye beads', though one has raised stacked dots. In some cultures this type of bead is worn to ward off the evil eye. One of these beads has a fine silver foil core, a technique. practiced as far back as the Viking era, or about the 10th century. The other has twisted glass (twistie) decorations, a technique I have observed to be present in many ancient beads, some over 2000 years old.

Beads that have been 'feathered', 'combed' or 'raked' have also been around for a very long time. The three techniques are quite similar, using a tool or point of a glass rod to pull lines of glass laterally across the bead. Some of the beads pictured are cone shaped. These could have been used as whorls on wool spindles, or worn decoratively, or both (as some of my friends do).

The last technique I will mention here is that of folding glass. Tom and Sage Holland re-discovered the methods of making this type of bead after a lot of trial and error. An article explaining how this is done can be read in volume 29, issue 4 of Ornament magazine. I have as yet to make any of these for the 'Modern Medievals' collection, but they will be coming soon.

For more interesting information about ancient glass beads, you can search the collection at the Corning Museum of Glass , or visit the Viking Answer Lady. You can also visit my Pinterest page , Historical Glass Beads.

Drawing the Line~ Glass Stringer Control for Beginners

Well, I recently purchased a pair of amazing glass beads with musical notes on a staff from Heather Behrendt. The stringer work on them was so precise and tiny I could hardly believe my eyes. Needless to say, I started thinking that it was maybe just slightly possible that I could begin to learn to draw a few lines on some beads. I know the theory, of course~ pull very fine stringer, find sweet spot in flame, apply to bead. Sounds easy, yes?  Oh! I forgot something~ p,p,p (practice, practice, practice, in case you had something else in mind).

I tried a wee bit of this out yesterday, and here are a few conclusions, ideas and points of interest. Firstly, if you are just scribbling stringer randomly around a bead, you can heat up a pea-sized bit of glass on the end of a rod to a nice red glow, pull it out of the flame, attach it to the bead and run it quickly around the bead by either turning the bead around or moving the blob about. This is what I call a 'glass blowers style' application as was used in this bead. Not a teeny tiny line, but quite easy to do, and no need to pull stringer in advance as you are using a blob of glass instead of a thin bit.


But anyone can do that, right? Time to move on to something a bit more difficult. The next bead was made using a commercial thin stringer. Thinner than a regular commercial stringer, but still not really thin, so the lines still ended up thick-ish. I tried out a couple of parallel lines and then a couple intersecting lines. Here's where the sweet spot in the flame came into play. I have often heard that you can work to the side of the flame, using the heat of the bead to heat the stringer. Seems I was working more in front of the flame. I don't think it really matters, as long as the bead is hot enough to make the stringer stick. The stringer should be applied by pushing it onto the bead, not just laying it down onto the bead, or it will not adhere properly. If that happens, it will pull off of the bead and ball up, giving you dots instead of lines. In this case, I added some dots at the intersections of the lines to help hide any blobby bits there.

Now on to the harder stuff! For this bead, the first step was pulling some thin stringer. I have not gotten to the hair-thin phase, but it's pretty thin! I decided to try some colors other than black just for fun. The main tip here is- PAY ATTENTION! Hold the stringer near the end so it doesn't wobble while you apply it, but be sure there is enough sticking out to make the entire swipe onto the bead at once. Be sure the tip of your stinger is not blobbly (cut it off if it is), heat the bead, put it in position out of the flame, but still close (your sweet spot) and apply the stringer by pushing it onto the bead. Wow, do I have shaky hands! You can see I used a lot of dots here and there to hide ends and wobbly bits. I had to figure out how to make that a design element! Oh, but now I've given it away... I do like the look of the different stringer colors~ helps with the retro look! And you can see that is is very different on each side. Why the heck not?!

I will have to let you know if the p,p,p works out, or if I just end up peeved, peeved, peeved!

Me on the radio! Lampwork Glass Beads on Marketplace Weekend...

Woohoo. This is a first for me- I was interviewed for the radio show Marketplace Weekend. It's just a small piece of the whole show about 'profiting on passion'. OK, so I sound a little silly. But still~ it's me on a national radio show! They said it couldn't be done.... You can listen here~

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/your-money/your-wallet-profiting-passion

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with the show~ but bending beads is my current obsession!

You Are... Focus on Life week 25

Well, in my mind I changed this from 'you are' to 'I am' So that's what I'm going with!
One thing I am this week is late! I've been forgetful about blogging lately.
This week, I am a bead researcher. I have a lot of ideas about making focal beads- what looks good and what doesn't. But the question is- am I right or wrong? So- I'm asking y'all, among others, for a bead assessment. Here are four beads- all very similar in color, but different in shape and other design details. So the question is- do you have a favorite? One (or more) you don't like? can you explain why??
When I make beads there are always a lot of different thoughts and ideas knocking around my brain- about what I want to do with that bead, what I want to do next, and what others might find interesting about how this all works. One burning question I keep coming back to is what makes a good focal bead!!??!!
Let me know what you think! To see more of what we are, check out Sally's Blog!