Hello world... sorry I have been MIA recently. I hurt my back on Thursday (it is better now) and that made me either want to lay in bed eating chocolate and pain pills while having a Harry Potter marathon or be outside enjoying the perfect weather. Neither of which lead to much blogging, not that there was a lot to write about really... I have summed it up in about a paragraph! haha.
So, here is whats been goin' on:
On Wednesday I worked with Rosanne and made some wineglasses for the semester end project:
The tops are blown into a mold and then I attempted to make straight stems on them for future carving.
"and she knocked me out with those American thighs!"
"she's got legs and she knows how to use them..."
The last one on the right here was a complete mess up but led to making a sort of marble stem so I saved it for throwing away later haha. I kind of like it, kind of different... completely ugly!
Thursday I worked all day with Sigrid making more wine glasses. She had found the perfect shaped mold and we just made and made and made and made. We even used some of the factory glass which was super shiny and sparkly (kind of like the Twilight Vampires, anyone else excited for True Blood to start?!?) and it felt like you were making wine glasses out of butter. It was AMAZING!! I am definitely going to make some more with that glass!
Thursday night I went for my usual jumping lesson and that is where I hurt my back. Don't worry, I didn't fall off or anything like that. It was stupid, Poseidon jumped a fence weirdly (he kind of bucked while going over it) and somehow that made me pull a muscle right in the arch of my back on the right side. I am so annoyed because it was not the most absurd jump where I thought I might fall off (there were a lot of those that night, maybe too many) because he flew through the air with such force and lack of grace, it was a mostly normal jump for him!! My back didn't really start hurting until I was driving home and I guess finally gave it time to cramp up or something. By the time I got home I could barely take my shoes off so I climbed directly in bed with an ice pack, pain pill and Diam icecream cone. I emailed Val, my physical therapy doctor friend, who said I would live (thanks Dr. Val!) and stayed in bed for a long time. No, I got up and moved around some on Friday, but it was similar to a 100 yr old person moving around... not too fun or fast.
Saturday I went to the open house they had in Orrefors with Kirsten, Vegard and Sigrid and their kids. It was really nice to see the town full of people (sort of full) and all the shops open and they even had the masters blowing! So, we got to watch Stephan and Jan blow their own things which was nice and interesting, we see them everyday blow things for the factory work. When we walked in they laughed and said "can't stay away?!" and we laughed and said "well, theres not much else to do!" Anyway, this is Jan, he was master here in Orrefors at like 18, the youngest master to date.
Everything with him is so smooth and fluid... and he has magic little hands.
This is Stephan helping him.
Oh and we also had lunch at the Vardhuset (the Orrefor's place to eat traditional Swedish food lunch) and got stuffed on sausages, amazingly good bread, potatoes and chicken, brown sauce of course and carrot cake!
The tiny little Smalands Delicateessen was open and giving out samples of sausages, spreads, breads and all sorts of good things that those fancy little food stores usually have. I had never been in there and really enjoyed all my free samples :)
I love the classic glassblower picture, all the angles and everything... I hope one day to look that cool and at ease... guess I have to log another 30 years or so...
Saturday evening was a BBQ in Thomas's yard with the kids and even a croquet game! It was fun and amazing weather which was really nice. Thomas also luckily lives right next door so I didn't have far to walk :) Later we went over to Sigrid and Vegard's to play monopoly but never did... just drank and talked and stayed up way too long. I am enjoying getting to know Sigrid and Vegard more out of school... makes next year less boring looking with so many of my friends leaving!
Today I worked with Vegard all day in the factory. We started out with him making with water decanter which he made a mold for which is super difficult. Then we went on to one of my ideas. It was a bowl with a color stripe at the bottom, a striped stripe in the middle and a clear stripe around the rim. Sounds simple enough right?! haha, it was not my best planned piece. We ended up doing a true encalmo which is not my forte and I made a big mess which took FOREVER. But, here were my instructions, nicely laid out for me at my bench:
Yes, some other people think that looks like alien writing also... its not just you. So I pulled some color into stripes to lay out for the striped layer of the bowl and here are my tools:
At the top we have a "P divider" as they call it here, but that is how they say Pi it turns out... it tells me how long something has to be to reach around the circumference of whatever fits into the claw like end. To the right of that is a cane cutter, you lay the cane over the blade, one end up against the triangle sticky up part and hit it with another blade and you get the same length canes each time! Here is a close up:
So, underneath all of it you see some striped and clear stripes which I then laid in a row to pick up on the hot bubble. This sounds simple enough but in our attempt to keep it super simple we had to try 3 different ways to get the stripes hot enough to stick to my glass bubble! First we put them in the annealer, then used a flame thrower on them and then finally had to put them on this super heavy thing and heat them in the glory hole... but I finally got them on there!! I made the bowl, got it in the annealer and tonight I don't really wait in excitement to see it tomorrow... more dread of just how bad will it be!
Here are the wineglasses I made with Sigrid on Thursday...they are all so similar and PRETTY!!! I can't wait to get the top off the glass to really see how it looks :)
This one has a few strings of colors we used today, white, turquoise (called turkis in Norwegian, pronounced similar to turkeys which made me laugh... I am so considerate), pink and green (I made a Sweet Briar plate today).
After school I joined Martin, Bjorn and Kresten for a pre-gym kabob! I had thought we were going to my favorite place in Nybro but we stayed in Orrefors and I accidentally ordered a pizza kabob but it was GREAT anyway! It comes on a thin pizza with a little bit of sauce and cheese then shaved gyro/kabob meat, topped with crunchy fries and dollops of garlic sauce! I ate half and saved the other half... but I am not too sure how to rewarm it without making the fries all gross... I guess in the oven?
Now I am getting ready for bed and relaxing. My back is much better, I can feel a bit of an ache in it now after a long day but it really held up all day! I think I am well on the mend thankfully!!! Hopefully this Thursday's lesson will be a little more calm and sane... maybe I can get someone to video me one day so you can see the crazy/awesomeness! But for now... bed!
so glad your back is better, take care in your lesson!
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