The advantage of being a potter is that Kim can make her own molds for glass making, which made her think - hey, let's try doing pattern bars and murrini.
Pattern bars are basically a brick-shaped lump of fused glass that can then be cut into small sections to make patterns on plates, bowls or be used in jewellery making.
Murrini is traditionally made by glass blowers. They add colours and texture to a ball of glass, then stretch it into a cane and snip off sections to create murrini. Think of it as the rock candy of glass. But Kim thought we could make a fused glass version of murrini using molds she made. So we did.
First, she hand built a series of molds in clay. They had to dry over a long period of time to avoid warping or cracking in the kiln. Then she bisque fired them. Here's where I came in, applying kiln wash to the molds so the molten glass wouldn't stick to to them. In the next blog, we will let you know how the first firing went.