"Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow." ~Doug Firebaugh

Well, today was another day of blowing in molds.... I am going to start dreaming about molds at this point.

So, the task at hand is to blow a bubble which is thin in the bottom and has a kind of thick neck in it right near where it attaches to the pipe.  Let it cool some and at the lagum (just right) time you gather more glass on top of the bubble but not over the neck.  Scoop it, paper it, blow in it and again at the lagum time you let it hang long and then quickly stuff it in a mold and blow.  Now, depending on the mold, you may have to continue spinning while in the mold which might cause the mold to spin, so you have to hold it still with one foot, balance on the other foot while standing on a step and blow and blow until the glass is cold enough to hold the shape on its own.  Flip it over and make sure the bottom is flat then break it at the neck (I just realized how barbaric that sounds) and stuff it in the annealer (cooling oven) before it cracks.  I realize this might sound like some crazy Cat in the Hat moment but no.... it was my morning.

We are supposed to do this all week.... Luckily, we managed to fill the whole annealer with glass before lunch which looks similar to this stuff that we made on Thursday:

 bowls and glasses which need their tops popped off.

 This is some of the green glass from the one furnace, its hard to see but it kinds is like those real old Coke bottles, slightly green tinted.

I made a ton of these today... It was struggle in the beginning to get my hands working but ended up pretty OK.  Also, it seemed that every time I was messing up the teacher, Marianne, would walk by and see it.  I guess that is how it always is, but boy was it frustrating!

After lunch we had a little meeting talking about the schedule.  We are going to do some free blown wineglasses, encalmo, overlaying colors, blown feet and maybe some sculpture.  And some cold stuff which we haven't even talked about yet.  Lots to do in a little time but of course there is even more that I want to try to do also!  I guess that is how it always is.

After lunch we made some wineglasses which went a lot better then the plain old mold blowing.  Except, I was having foot troubles.  I foot on my glass was never very round, more like a fried egg.  And my bats, sounds like butt, at the end of the stem where you attach the foot was too big.  I kept thinking of super lame jokes like "(say it in a drunk, fat man voice) I like my wine glasses like I like my women, full on top, long leg, small butt and solid feet on the ground." See, lame!  It was so lame that I didn't even tell anyone in class, just you guys! Aren't you special ;)