"The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work." ~ Berthold Auerbach

So Friday I got a few wineglasses out of the annealer.  

 The one on the left reminds me of a pregnant lady and the one of the right is Kate Moss.  

I made a few more wineglasses in the morning to get my fingers working and warmed up to do the graals!  Vegard and I were so excited to start but we had to wait until after lunch for the pieces to warm up enough for us to work with them.  So, before lunch we practiced how to make the navel (where the graal piece attaches to the pipe), organized our bench, cleaned the marvering table... and in general got everything ready for success!

After lunch we sat around for a while waiting for the teachers but they were busy doing something else.  So, finally we convinced Anniinna to supervise my first one!  She started but then finally Ake wandered over and took over the supervision/directing.  I did the hibiscus one first and it went really well!  I managed to do everything my self, even turn the super heavy pipe (takes lots of glass) and marver it straight!  I was really pleased I did it all by myself, I thought it was possible that something would go wrong and I would need saving, but NO!

After my first successful one Vegard tried his mostly unsupervised! It went well, there was a crack in his under color (which was also white) so that was disappointing.  The piece turned out nice, even and the pattern stayed straight and even also!  He was very pleased with his results and afterward said that now he knows he can do it, he won't be too worried about it next time.  I think he is already thinking of the next one he wants to do!

Then, it was my turn to do the dragon one!! I had thought about putting some yellow on the bottom of the piece because I made the red color dissolve but in the end decided to keep it simple.  It worked out perfect because the bottom of the piece became the part with no color so you hardly notice at all! The dragon design stayed very nicely centered and even and the whole thing turned out well, a little thick but cool.  

Here they are in the annealer after they were done.  The dragon is on the top left and this hibiscus and Vegard's are on the bottom.  I know it is super hard to see but I didn't want to hold it open too long and make them crack! 

 Friday evening I went to the stables and rode Lady.  For the first time I got to be the first to jump! Usually I am last, I guess so I can watch and understand what we are supposed to do.  But, this time I had already done the exercise before and got to go first! Lady was great and it was a beautiful day to be out at the barn.  Hopefully one day we will be able to jump outside instead of indoors ALL the time!

And, look, the flowers all starting to really bloom!!

 Saturday was a bit cold and cloudy so I stayed in watching movies, Mad Men, goofing off and then finally cooking a real proper dinner:

Stake and fresh green beans! I am not sure what cut of steak it is... but it was good! I over cooked it a little, there was a tiny bit of pink in the middle, but not enough to count really.  Oh well, still very good :)

Sunday, I got up and decided to walk the nearly 3 kilometers to the big lake for a day in the sunshine!  On the way I encountered this little guy: 

 Yes!!!  A snake in Sweden!! I have heard that there aren't any deadly poisonous ones here, just really painful venom kind, so I wasn't too scared, well really scared at all.  It didn't move which made me think it was dead and I thought about poking it with a stick to check.  Then I thought, if it isn't dead it might bite me and I would be ruining its sunbathing, which is rude.  So, I just took a picture and walked on... it seemed the only polite thing to do! haha  Once I got to the lake I realized they hadn't put the pier back in the water where we went swimming before.  Very sad! But I walked a little further and found my own person island!

 It was perfect, I could lay to the right of the ridge in the middle and it blocked all the wind!  I laid in my bathing suit for a while but it was a bit chilly for that so most of the time I had my towel wrapped around myself.  It was a great afternoon of reading, relaxing and absorbing some much needed vitamin D!  I even brought myself a snack:

 Wine, crackers with apples and brie!  Yes, I am reading Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, and it was even better then the movie!!!

After about 5:30 I wandered back to Orrefors only to find out there was a barbecue going on! This time they even had a fire going :)  This guy, Mads, from Denmark was hosting it and all the chill people were there which was really fun.

 "meatball?"

 I sat next to the fire, ate a hotdog, drank some beer and have a great end to my relaxing Sunday!

 Can you smell it?! My mouth is watering again haha!

This morning, being Monday even though it feels much later, I went to the cold shop.  There Vegard goes "are you going to the hot shop? Oh, you haven't seen the graals yet?!?!" and I turned around quickly ran to the hot shop to see them!!! As usual everything shrinks (not literally) in the annealer, but they look great all the same!

 The sun makes the patterns a bit weird, but it shows the colors well.

 Dragon head, tongue and flaming nostrils...

 belly...

 bum and cloud...

 and, awesome tail!

 Look how even the white is... I am gooooood! 

 Then I remembered the matchbox.

 But look how great it looks with light coming through it! Right now I am sitting in my room with a candle in it and it looks even better! I will show you tomorrow.

 one flower... two flower....

 green flower... blue flower (not really, they are all white on the purple, it just rhymed...)

 Here the white is a bit thinner and you can see the sun shining through the flowers!

I don't have a candle in this one but I think it would also look cool.  Hopefully instead I can pick some daffodils or some flower to put in it soon!  Anyway, all morning I cleaned up their bottoms and signed my name so I could take them home right away!! I am very pleased and can't wait to make more!!

"She's got a hibiscus on her hiney!" ~ The Fountain, aka Mr. Menendez

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"Hmm, death by mini-bar. How glamorous." ~ My Best Friend's Wedding

So, as I mentioned before, this week is "miniature week" and the teachers are holding strong.  No deviating from miniatures, believe me, I have tired.  It is fun, but after a while it gets boring... but don't worry Vegard and I have managed to find ways to make it more interesting!

But, I am getting ahead of myself, I will go in order of what you missed in the brief time I have been without technology.

On Friday I worked some with different color techniques.  I had read that it was possible to use the optic molds to change and shape the colors you put on the glass.  First I tried to make dots. To do this you put the clear piece in an optic mold which gives it stripes up and down, then wrap a super thin sting of color over the piece.  You heat it up and the color is supposed to stick to the sticky-outy parts of the stripes on the clear piece and the heat makes it snap between the ridges, making a dot of color.  Well, that is the theory. I got more kind of odd lines.

 They remind me of using a marker as a kid and you always got one end of the line with a darker dot where you held the marker longer then anywhere else.  Did you do this?  Anyway, not dots... more like maker dashes!

 I also did a string of color on these two.  It was much thicker and kind of a blue/grey.

 The one on the right is the same as the above technique but obviously didn't work AT ALL! The one on the left is a rope pattern.  I had wanted it to go the other way but that was too tricky... so we have this strange pattern going on:

 This one, below, is also an attempt at the dots... but the glory hole was too cold and warmed the glass so slowly that instead of snapping between the ridges it slowly melted into the curves and made a sort of spider web effect.  Strangely enough, I like this one the best, but the orange marker dashes are closest to what I was going for!

Then on Monday the beginning of Mini Week started in Orrefors!  So, we made miniature bowls, bottles and more bottles.  Then Vegard and I made miniature wine glasses!

 See how small!!! They are so cute! I think they would be good schnapps glasses!

Vegard managed to make the smallest, but mine were the prettiest ;) haha!

After school on Monday I went to the evening class for a while, then home to talk to Sam and then out to enjoy the beautiful weather.  So, I decided to walk to the lake and enjoy the sunset.  It is nice, it stays light here until after 8 already!  

 I went to the place with all the little bridges and little islands and sat for a while absorbing some sunshine and fresh air!

 I am in love with the picture below, it has a timeless classic feel to it I think.  I was all by chance, I didn't do anything special with the camera, just snapped and it is soooo pretty!

 After sitting there for an hour I left while the sun was still this high.  I had forgotten that sunsets take HOURS here this far north! It was just dusk when I finally got home! So, I missed the best part of the sunset, but I was starving and had to leave.  Oh well, there is always another day.

 Tuesday, was day 2 of Mini WEEK!  I hope you can hear the fake cheerleader voice that I say that with in my head... I mean it was fun for a day... but how many tiny bottles can you make?! Also, I keep walking around singing "its a small world affffffter all" and no one knows what I am talking about!   Well, we decided to take things up a notch and made tiny mini water pitchers! 

 The one on the left is exactly the same as the big one I made a few weeks ago. Blown foot and TINY blown handle!!! The one on the right is my version of a tiny Rebecca Pitcher.  I don't know why they are called that... I just remember watching Mamma make the super long handles in clay for hers and always worrying about them in the kiln when she fired them.  She called it a Rebecca Pitcher or Handle or something.  Also, I watched Pride & Prejudice the night before and they have one, normal size, in glass in one of the scenes that is BEAUTIFUL!  

 Also, in the display cabinet at school there are these two enormous tulip cups.  They are a normal wine glass top with a blown foot that is attached as the stem, stretched long then opened up in a sort of trumpet or tulip look.  

 We made 3 little baby ones!  Interestingly enough it was not the actual piece that gave us the most trouble it was making a 2 pronged punty which you attach to the rim of the opened up bottom to be able to open and shape the cup part!  My punties looked like deformed crab claws but we got a few and I think they look really cool! Hopefully we will do them big one day!  The one below is the best of the day :)

 This morning I went to the cold shop where I decided to finally decorate the graal enamals or blanks as I call them.  I started with the red over white, which wasn't perfect but usable.  Vegard wants to blow up the graals on Friday and so I figured I better have something to work with so I don't have to just watch him! Since I had red and white I went with a Chinese dragon on mine.

 First I covered the whole thing in this SUPER thick and sticky tape, drew the dragon on the tape, then cut away the parts which are to be white.  Above you can see where the red is will soon be sand blasted away so that the white can show through when I blow it up!

 Then I sand blasted for what felt like HOURS... but wasn't that long.  Long enough thought that when I came out of the room I was covered in a fine layer of white all over.  Rosanne cleaned me off with some compressed air but I had sand boogers for hours.  

 Then I peeled off the tape (and forgot to take a picture) and tomorrow will finish any small details with the engraving tools.  I hope it looks cool, and turns out well, I am excited, don't worry I will remember to take a picture.  Right now actually I need to draw the design for my other blank.  I took it home to draw on and cut tonight so tomorrow I can go straight to the sand blasting!  It is purple over white... I don't know what to do... all I keep thinking of are those hibiscus flowers from the late 90's early 00's that everyone had on their shirts and cars and stuff.  Kind of like this:

(link)

"Either he's dead or my watch has stopped." Groucho Marx

So, the internet is down in the student house again... BOOOOO! 

I just wanted to check in and say I am alive and doing well.  School is good and I have lots of pictures for you once the internet comes back but currently you will have to live with just knowing it is "minature week." Everything is in minature... pretty interesting!

But, I am currently not supposed to be using the computer at school to do this... I should be doing something productive but I am "le tired" because between school and the evening class I went jogging and talked to Sam... so my brain has shut down and my body wants a feast for dinner! Haha, hopefully curry chicken will suffice.

 I will update as soon as we have internet or I get my computer somewhere with wireless internet!

"All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast." ~John Gunther

"the first printed mention of bagels... is to be found in the Community Regulations of Kracow, Poland for the year 1610 which stated that bagels would be given as a gift to any woman in childbirth." 

~ The Joys of Yiddish" by Leo Rosten

Yesterday morning I made bagels!! I used this recipe and this step by step how-to, thank goodness for the internet! Life must have been much harder with black and white cook books!  OK, so here is how it went down:

The ingredients + sugar

 I first decided to make blueberry bagels, who doesn't love those?! I didn't think about it and used slightly frozen blueberries, which while melting lost all their liquids and chilled the hell out of the yeast... making it difficult to proceed with the rising... whoops.

 So I left it to rise for FOREVER and then made another batch of plain ones because clearly the blueberry ones were effed.... so then I laid the bowl sideways with heat coming straight from the oven vent into the covered bowl...

 which just made things more wet and mushy and toxic purple!

 So, after giving the blueberry batch 3 times the allotted rising time and the plain 2 times the suggested time it was time to make them into rings!

 Which, even with TONS of flour was incredibly sticky.  And at this point my hands were also purple... 

 But I got them all shaped, and was supposed to wait for them to rise again... SO MUCH WAITING!!!  While doing all this waiting I started looking into the history of bagels and am now pleasantly up to date on bagel facts and trivia!  I hope you also feel slightly more educated after reading the above quote and watching this bagel catastrophe (which turns out mostly good in the end) unfolding.

 But then I got to boil them!!!!

 Which was kind of odd and gross but I knew it was necessary to the best part of the bagel... chewy-ness!!

 Then bake them for 10 minutes, flip over and bake another 10 mins!

 TA-DA! They are super blue/purple but I am OK with that... because....

 They look good with cream cheese on them!!!  And, taste even better!!!

So, here is the whole bunch, minus one I ate, and they look pretty good.  There is something slightly wrong with the plain ones surprisingly not the blue ones.  They didn't want to rise properly the second time and so I finally gave up and boiled them anyway.  But, when I dropped them in the water they SANK! Which made me think of eggs, they are bad when they sink, or is it when they float... anyway, when they don't do the normal thing they are bad... where my bagels bad? Would they stink when I cracked one open?!?! Luckily, the answer was no.

I had one of the plain ones for breakfast today with egg, bacon and cheese on it! Sadly the worst part was the bagel, it was too dense and hard.  Maybe I will microwave it next time, microwaves make everything softer!  Or maybe they can be bird food.  I already have requests to make some cinnamon raisin ones (it is super hard to find bagels in Sweden!).  But, I am excited about a nice toasty blueberry bagel for breakfast tomorrow before school!  mmmm!!!