Hot Mess Part Fifty-Two: Meh

 

A few of these are round. A few have good hooks.

3 January 2026

I've been putting this post off because I haven't figured out what I want to say about my adventures in glassblowing in December. I'll just write whatever.

Low Key, Sage, Sometimes, and CP weren't around. It was me with GGP or me with Iron Maiden.

I tried to make a bowl out of Cherry Red rod. I lost control, of course, so I spun it out and it went wavy. The bottom was way off-center. It would have taken half an hour to grind it flat, had I not cracked the bottom out completely when I went to break it off the punty. "Save it for shards," J1 said. So I did. (There are 3 Js in this studio, J1 being the first one I met.)

Too bad. It's a great color. I have more rod, though, and I plan to use it up.

I wanted to make more ornaments so that I could give good ones away and sell meh ones for charity. 

I used to know how to make hooks. 

If I didn't set things up right, the glass would blow out into a potato.

Ocasionally I'd get a good one; I gave this one away an hour after I fetched it from the studio.

This one too, but it's not my best work.

I kept this one for myself. It's larger than the others, and thinner.

My favorite color combination is Enamel White under Jewel Tone Mix. I managed to get a few of these in between failures.

This poor potato is in the reject corner of the cabinet at home, too small and thin to bust up into useful shards. Maybe. Hmm...

I tried again, without blowing so hard. It's small, but it's round.

At the end of the night, I dipped into all the colors I had out.

When I tried to use Smoke Blue Light again, after having failed the first time, whatever it was I was trying to make collapsed. I went with it and blew it out into an orb. It's full of swirls and air bubbles. It's prettier than it would have been as a solid color.

I had taken the bowl made of smashed aventurine shards and smashed it again. "Third time's the charm," I said as we put it away. I used it as a drinking glass for a day, then gave it a home in the cabinet, where the overhead light lets it sparkle.

That was on a weeknight. I took a few Wednesdays off to blow glass in the morning. That meant getting up before sunrise and meeting GGP at the Yardley Park and Ride at 7:40 a.m. In normal traffic, we'd reach East Falls by 8:45 to hunt for a parking space.

The studio is so peaceful at that hour. We're usually the first ones at work, so only one glory hole is fired up. This is the view from the far end of the studio, away from the door.

Here we were set up at the hole closest to the door and farthest from the furnace. At first I didn't like being this far, but I got used to it. The light is better and it's not as hot. Here, GGP has her frit laid out, and I have the smashed red shards warming up on the hot plate. They look dark because they go from red to black as they heat up.

I decided to make more ornaments with my favorite combination.

As an experiment, I put Jewel Tone Mix over Saffron. I could tell right away that it was a bad combination. I blew too hard too fast and the thing turned into a ginormous potato. It was very light though! I mailed it to my naturalist friend in Amherst. She gave it a home in her yard next to a passel of my other rejects.

With the red shards, I tried to make a tall vase. This was at the end of the day, and it shows. The piece is too thick and the proportions are off. It's too thick to smash into shards. It's in the reject corner of the cabinet at home right now. 

I put two of the Jewel Tone Mix ornaments into a Jewel Tone Mix bowl next to a Jewel Tone Mix mug and a Jewel Tone Mix vase. I would have put them on the Christmas tree, but it's Clementine's first tree, which she knocked down before I had a chance to decorate it. I tethered the tree to the curtain rod, but I decided not to risk losing any ornaments I might not be able to replace.

We had our first real snowfall early this year. Saint Polychromatous was having a good time wearing snow hats.

After the Party was wearing snow too.

I put the red shard vase on the Window Sill of Judgment. The light did not help.

After pulling out a couple of ornaments to keep or give away, I was left with 16 quasi-rejects. I packed them up, along with an ornament display I'd used back when I didn't have several dozen in my collection.

I had to walk gingerly from my car to the lab, navigating ice patches with a bag full of fragile glass.

I forgot to get a picture of the display before two of my colleagues came by and bought all the best ones. My goal was to be rid of them all, for $5 to $10 apiece (pick your price), match the amount brought in, and divide the total between the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen and the Boys and Girls Club of Mercer County. I chose these charities because a little goes a long way for them. That, and I could never be the kind of person it takes to do the work they do.

At the end of the day, there were still 9 left.

That was Monday. By Friday, all that was left were three clear ones and the sad potato.

I kept the clear ones; they're in one of the shard bowls I made in October.

Back in the studio, I tried again with Cherry Red. I broke the bottom out again. The cup was too thick anyway. It's shards now.

I've had no luck with Canary Yellow either. This time, I wound up with something that was too large for a cup and too wide for a vase.

But I knew exactly what to do with it. I put my colleague's Christmas cactus in it. The blue shard bowl that was there before went back home with me.

After I made the Cherry Red shard vase, there were still some red bits left over. I used them to make a giant ornament.

With about 15 minutes left in the session, I picked up a piece of Iron Maiden rod and blew it out into another giant ornament.

This color is weird. From one angle, the top looks like an opaque blue. Hanging in my window, the top is a deep brownish-red.

And that was that for glassblowing in 2025. Over 10 sessions at East Falls, I started to get the hang of things towards the end. I'm still not in control, but at least I know where I'm bound to get into trouble.

Having lowered my expectations has helped. Not having to go through a critique helps too. I don't think any of the people who work at East Falls would ever pass judgment on anything we Bucks Crew folks turn out. I'm there to fart around. I have to remember that.

After Christmas, we had an ice storm. The Saints were coated.

Saint Cullet

Saint Polychromatous

Saint Polychromatous

Saint Vitreous

Maybe the poor potato should go on Saint Vitreous.

Saint Vitreous

Saint Orbitus

Saint Miscellaneous

Maybe the Cherry Red shards vase should go on Saint Miscellaneous.

This is a witch's ball fail that I hung outside two years ago. The top has a hole where I missed with the hook, and water has been accumulating. Now there's a blob of something organic in the midst of the water. The whole mess froze.

After the Party

After the Party

Over the past few weeks, I've been herding the cats again. I got a list of dates in January and February, asked the crew to chime in, made a spreadsheet, and nailed down 6 evenings so far. I'll be blowing glass every Wednesday night in January with GGP and Iron Maiden. I have four days to figure out what I should make. It always helps to go in with a plan.