Yesterday, Surrey based Mark Laird of Hazelhouse Jewellery, came to West Horsley Village Hall to tell us all about glass fusion and give us the chance to make two pieces to take home.
Well, what an interesting talk and demonstration! Now for the exciting bit.
Once we had decided on our design, we chose our colours from a table full of jars and pots of crushed glass which we learnt is called frit. Back to our benches to use a glassline pen to outline our design or a stringer, which is a thin ‘spagetti like’ piece of glass for straight lines. Frit is used for the main body of the design and we also had the option of using larger beads of glass, again in a variety of colours.
Some of us made a wave and others decorated glass to ultimately become tealights after firing.
3 hours later, Mark packed up our afternoon’s work and took them back to his kilns to be fired. The two pictures below show everyone’s work ready to go in the kiln.
Now we have to wait for a week to see the result.
One our of guests, Carolyn wrote to us this morning and said:
“What an absorbing and enjoyable afternoon under Mark’s expert guidance at the glass fusion workshop! Everyone was really friendly, the tea and cakes were delicious and, for me, the best part was seeing the huge variety of designs people came up with. I can’t wait to see everyone’s finished pieces after firing. Thanks for a great event. Cheers Carolyn”
I think we can safely say that everyone had a wonderful afternoon and as this event was such a success, we will try and organise another workshop for next year.
