"Offfff course I willlllll, I PROMISE!" ~ Me being too agreeable Saturday night

So, the internet is still being weird and lame and is off and on... that is why there hasn't been much posting.  It is hard to do this when it is a hassle, usually its nothing, but once it becomes a pain I am easily distracted.

But! Thursday night we got to ride OUTSIDE!! This is the first time since I started riding here that we have gotten to jump outside!! We had a fun little jumper course set up in the field and this is how light it is at 9:30PM after my lesson! Pretty cool :)

 This is the twirly bubble glass that Micke and Ake showed Vegard and I how to make. Vegard made this one, it is really nice except sadly the foot broke in the annealer.

 Then on Friday I rode Poseidon again, I rode him Thursday too.  Thursday we thought he was being grumpy because the ground is a bit hard outside (it hadn't rained in forever) but he was grumpy again inside.  Weird horse.  We think maybe something scared him in another lesson because now he is even harder to convince to jump! Oh well, I still like him, but I can't wait to see JUSTIN!!!

 Saturday night was the Eurovision contest finale!  This made not one but TWO different parties in Orrefors! It was amazing! I started at Kirsten's with the usual crew of people plus Gitte and Anthony who moved away to Denmark and Kirsten's friend Irene from Norway.  

 

 I was overly excited about the competition, every time a new country came on I would be like "yaaaay Germany!!" and clap my hands... it was a bit embarrassing but I couldn't help it!  They were so weird and absurd!!! This is a competition of bands, each from a different country and the finale had like 30 bands competing!  Norway was already out, Sweden held strong and ended 3rd, Denmark didn't do too hot and I don't remember what happened to Finland... It was a lot of fun and by the end of the night I was convinced I was going to buy a compilation CD of all the songs in the finale... thank god I didn't! But the country that won was Azerbaijan!  Here you can see there acceptance and second rendition of their instant classic:

 It was a huge soccer stadium in Germany made over for the event.

 Very happy people...

 Absurd dancing...

 and of course heartfelt singing!  Next year the finale will be hosted in Azerbaijan... I am not exactly sure where that is... but it is EXCITING!!!

This is Kirsten and her friend Irene who went to the school a while back and next year will be going to Bornholm in Denmark!  I tried to put up some more funny pictures but for some reason it won't let me :(  very sad.  

Sunday Rosanne came over and we had a waffle making party! It was the perfect cure for my hangover and we made blueberry ones, cinnamon ones, plain, vanilla... everything we could think of.  We of course couldn't eat as many as we made so we froze the rest and I have visions of home made frozen waffles for breakfast! Surely it will be better then Eggo Waffles right?!  Hopefully!  We are talking of making a Sunday baking tradition... now that we have one month left!  So, next Sunday it is more Kanelbullar (cinnamon buns)!

Here is the actual video of the song that won if you are reallllllllllllllllly curious:

"A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.” ~ Heraclitus of Ephesus

Sorry about not posting yesterday, the internet was acting weird.  It is again today but I am going to try anyway!  My connection keeps going in and out... tres weird.

This is almost what Rosanne wants, but it is closest we have come all week to getting it:

 She wants two inter-lapping bowls which will either make a plate or vase... it is hard to explain and even harder to understand and EVEN harder to make!  It has been incredibly frustrating for both of us and seems a bit impossible.  It is hard because when we work on this it takes FOREVER so I do a lot of sitting around then sitting around keeping one piece warm and bla bla bla.  It is super boring AND super frustrating.  But, don't tell Rosanne I said that! Haha, I think she knows already and feels a bit bad about it.

 Here we got Micke and Ake to try to make some super fancy wineglasses for us:

 The stem has 4 air bubbles which twirl around in a spiral! Very cool.  Vegard and I are going to try to make those soon :)  It was super hot in the hot shop and we were having a bad day with our wineglasses so it was nice to have a distraction.  I think that they like to play some too, they also tried another technique with a steam stick but it didn't work too well.

 The trees in front of my house are blooming!! It is so nice and fragrant here!! Lots of pollen too, everything is yellow but it is so pretty I don't care!

 Here is my fancy and really truely made encalmo!  I did it without cheating and it turned out pretty damn cool.

 I put the handles on the side to cover up a mistake and they even turned out nice too!  I forgot the matchbook but it is not that good, not that small really.  I like and can't wait to do it again!

 This week in the cold shop I have been working on what to do with that three colored plate which turned out with kind of weirdly all the same colors.  I thought that if I sandblast it the colors might show more and it might be more interesting.  I wanted something that went over the whole plate and have always loved Escher so I am doing his Sky and Water:

It is kind of interesting, some people who are all into being artistic and designing have NO IDEA who Escher is!!! I mean COME ON! He is so famous and his work is so recognizable! I messed up at the bottom so that is why the fish are covered with more tape, I accidentally cut away the wrong part.  I am excited to see how it comes out in the end and I think it should look cool!

I have also worked some of doing cuts in the stem of wineglasses.  You know when your wineglass stem has 6 straight sides?  That is done on the deep cutting wheel! So, I am trying to do that on a few, I think it looks nice and can be used to cover up slight uneven-ness.  Vegard just makes fun of me and says I am ruining a perfectly good stem, but what does he know?!?

Now I am off to bed, I have to get up early tomorrow to blow my ariel!!! 

"Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!" ~Robin Williams

Well, after a week of cold the weekend turned out be really nice and warm! Spring is official upon us here in Orrefors, or as many of the people here call it, Summer.  They clearly know nothing about 100F days with humidity... I remember all too well and am trying to enjoy my SPRING as much as possible!

This is the house were some poor kid was killed by a maniac in their tent... its sort of infamous around here.

 The important people house.

 MY HOUSE!

I went riding Thursday and Friday, I am so happy to be back on schedule with that! Who would have thought that after 2 weeks my legs would be SO sore!  Thursday I had a jumping lesson and rode Poseidon, the one who is a bit of a chicken shit.  He was not in the mood for jumping and tried to stop at every jump! The course was super hard and confusing and had really tight turns but it was fun.  At the end of the course was this water jump (which Poseidon HATES) and then a hairpin turn back to an oxer.  He made it over the water but flew the air with such force that I lost my stirrups which doesn't happen often.  I made the turn back to the other jump expecting him to stop at it but at the last second I feel him get ready to take off.  I don't have my stirrups yet and I suddenly decide I can't stop him, that would teach the opposite of what I want so I let him jump.... OHMYGOD! As we lifted off I heard the collective gasp of everyone in the ring and then as we flew through the air, my only contact with the horse being the end of the reins, I think "just land on the horse, just land on the horse!" and I did!! Then as we galloped away there was a collective "heregud! (oh my god)" and laugh from everyone.  Pia goes "you have amazing balance! Do it again."  It was GREAT!! My adrenaline was pumping for about 30 minutes afterwards and I couldn't stop smiling.  Haha, I was never scared and it worked out!!!

Friday's lesson was much more sane, we did dressage outside in the field.  I went back to my relaxed english hack style being outside and instantly got reprimanded and told to make the horse work!  Pia also told me I need to start jogging or something to work up my stamina... uhg.

Saturday I spent some time laying in a field enjoying the super warm sun:

 Then went over to Sigrid and Vegard's for their kid's birthday party.  I got leftover cupcakes :)

Sunday was just relaxing and chilling.  I started doing a workout video called The Tracy Anderson Method, which kicked my ass.  But, I will tell you more about it later.

Here is a cup I made last week with Sigrid when I got tired of plates:

 Monday and today I have worked with Rosanne trying to make this special piece for her year end project.  It is not going well at all.  Today we made something, sort of close... but still pretty bad.  So, I have nothing completed to show you, oh, maybe there is a really bad encalmo.  I will find it later!

But after school today Rosanne and I went to the big lake and sat here drinking coffee and relaxing for a while :)  I am so happy spring is here!!!

"Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate." ~ Emily Dickinson

So, last week was the week of plates! I made this plate first with Sigrid:

 It is done with the same technique where you make a cup of white, drop in some blue and then blow a big plate! I really like the colors, I wish the blue was stronger but its pretty cool.  The weird thing is the outie belly button which happened because I put the foot on a too thin bottom so it pushed in :(

 But maybe you can stack carrot sticks around it like a tepee?  haha who knows!

 On Friday Micke made these HUGE square vases that he blew in a mold.  You can see the mold sitting sideways next to the stairs.  On his pipe is one solid gather of glass at this moment.

 He made a post (put air in it), then gathered in black that the factory has.  Ake is using a scoop on it to smooth it and even out the heat.

 Then Micke blew it bigger and longer and then dropped it in the mold.

 And blew and blew and blew and blew down all the piggies houses (haha I crack myself up).

 It is really thick, about an inch and very long with straight sides.

 Here Ake is smoothing out the sides while Micke rolls and allows the piece to cool down some.

 and TAAAA-DAAAaaaaa like magic.  He makes it look so easy!!

 I also made this plate with 3 different colors.  The slightly depressing part is it appears I picked 3 colors that are almost the same!!!

 It is supposed to be red on the outside rim, purple in the middle and blue in the very center of the plate.

 Very nice shape though :)

 Here you can kind of see the colors with the flash... but is really hard in real life!

 But, in real life and not film you can see the red rim which is cool.  I am pleased with the shape and size and everything like that... but displeased by the lack of exciting colors because it was really difficult to do 3 colors!

 Here you can even see how straight I managed to keep them! 

I have talked to the teachers about maybe sandblasting some sort of pattern on it to maybe bring out the colors more... maybe?   We will see, I have no idea what pattern though... I keep thinking of flowers and butterflies since it is spring here but that is so over done... and not very exciting.  We will see what I come up with. But, I should go to bed so I can think of something tomorrow!

"here comes the story of the hurricane..." ~ Dylan

First off, I am suddenly back to be constantly hungry all the time, all I can think about is eating food when I am not blowing glass for the last few days! What is wrong with me?!?  But, I try to keep myself occupied by reading recipes and finding fun, slightly healthy ways to feed myself.  I got overly excited about it being summer here (it snowed again today) and found this summery salad to make:

 

Chicken Salad with Feta, Corn & Blueberries!!  The picture if from Pioneer Woman, mine was more covered in sauce and so much less pretty but very good.  I was OK with having more sauce because mine was made with soy creme fresh instead of mayonnaise and half and half... not so heavy really.  It was amazingly good and all I missed was a nice glass of chilled white wine!!

OK, so now that I have gotten that off my chest... I am already thinking about eating it again!  Haha, so now onto glass!

 These are the glasses I worked on last week.  I think I made 5 good ones that I am going to keep and one day drink champagne out of!

 This is what I worked on with Thomas!!! A jug in a jug!  

 Apparently this video was seen

 and Thomas wanted to rise to the challenge.  He made a few, but needed an assistant since Swedish glass doesn't stay hot as long as American glass.  It was fun to help and I want to try it with Vegard one day when we are bored :)

I have also done some deep cutting on a clear graal blank that I had made as a practice for the colors.  My plan is to use it for ariel.  I will cover it with a clear bubble trapping air in the deep spaces I have carved making a cool design with bubbles!

 They are sort of firework patterns.

 And one on the tip, which will be the bottom of the finished piece, just to test it out.

 I like these two pictures, you can see the design through the design and below is the star on the tip through the hole on the end were I will attach it to a hot pipe.

 On Tuesday Vegard and I wanted to do some encalmo where you make different layers or stripes of color on a piece so we got to raid the color pantry at school!!  Look at all the colors we found!!!!

 So, while the colors were heating up we practiced with clear.  We had only seen this on the internet and had no teachers around to help us so it was a bit awkward and absurd but we did it!! 

 FIVE, yes 5, layers of clear glass!!  We both did the first two, then swapped back and forth making the next layer and adding it on.  It was super hard and confusing and I am sure there are better ways to do it then we did, but it worked, it is a piece of glass and could even hold water I think! It is pretty big but not too heavy because some of the stripes are quit thin (oops).  

I was really pleased and impressed with us, Vegard didn't seem to care too much, be he doesn't get excited about much. 

Then Vegard made a HUGE plate with three colors but we did it with the technique we have already been using with a cup of color, add clear and then just kept adding color.  His turned out super cool and HUGE but mine got messed up pretty early on and only made it this far:

But the colors are great, maybe I can do some cool facet cutting on it or something since there is so much clear glass around the colors?  I saved it just in case.  I will have to take a picture of Vegard's plate for you later.

At the end of the day I worked with Sigrid and we just couldn't do anything right, I am not sure but we seem to be bad luck for each other!  I finally made this bowl, but it was our 3rd attempt at making anything!

 It weighs a ton and has been deemed the "hurricane bowl" for when you are tired of your table wear blowing away while you are having tea outside enjoying the weather... this one will stay through anything!

 Haha, I guess this is why I am in school, to make weird stuff like this!

Today was much better though, we made BIG plates and I can't wait to see them tomorrow :)  After school I went to the gym with Sigrid, she did spin and I did medel but after that they were starting this "I'm On Fire; Dans Fuego" thing kind of like Zumba I think.  We watched for a while but it was hard to take serious because the dude teaching the class was this blond, floppy haired, overly tan, too good looking guy dancing in front of probably 30 woman!  It was pretty absurd, but maybe fun, I might try it later when there are less people interested!