If you’ve ever wondered how I make the little flowers inside my beads, this is a short summary of the process that shows how I build up and pull floral cane…..
First step is to build up a large three-dimensional glass flower on a steel mandrel using layers and layers of molten glass. I start with the core of the flower, then add layers of colours to make the stamen and petals.
While I’m adding glass with one hand, I’m spinning the steel mandrel in the flame with other hand to keep the bundle of glass hot enough so that it doesn’t crack and cool enough so that it keeps its shape.
Once the petals are finished, I add a couple of layers of clear glass to encase the flower and round out the bundle.
The last step is to superheat the bundle of glass until it is glowing orange and becomes viscous like thick honey, then I slowly pull it out into a long, thin rod of glass that is anywhere between 3mm-10mm in diameter and 1.5-2.5 metres (5-8ft) long. This is the nerve-racking part because the glass has to be just the right temperature to pull easily and evenly - too hot and it falls into a hot mess on the ground, too cool and it doesn’t stretch out easily and the flowers are big and distorted. No pics for this part of the process - have to use both hands to pull.
When the cane is cool, I cut it into smaller rods, and heat and cut these into thin slices. Each slice is a little flower that can be set into a bead as it is being made. The whole process usually takes a couple of hours and produces 100’s of tiny flowers.
