The Glass Float Saga

My friend Kate got interested in glass floats about 2 years ago when she found a couple of them on the beach in Lincoln City.  This year she got to make her own first float and it was a lot of fun to watch.  Kate has great focus, and if ever that was needed it was in the glass studio, filled with a lot of hot and dangerous stuff:

Here’s Kate signing up and getting her first instructions:

You just have to jump right in and suddenly Kate’s holding a blob of molten glass…

After rolling the glass blob in her chosen colors (broken bits of glass visible above), she pokes in some tongs and wiggles them around–this will make the swirls in the finished piece:

Then, back into the “glory hole” it goes and heats up.  When it comes out Kate uses a wooden tool to shape the blob into a sphere:

Now Kate begins to blow on the tube and this makes the sphere get bigger and bigger.

Here Kate knocks the float off the pole used for the fabrication process–the float will have to sit for 24 hours in another kiln.

And here’s the finished float–the swirling blue of the ocean at the bottom and then flying leaves or birds swooping up at the top.  Wow–and this is only her FIRST float!!!!