What's Going On ...

I managed to get a nice little set of Orrbs made yesterday despite the fact that every cat in the house was trying to sleep in my lap last night...Amelie was the most determined, so I named the set after her...

And guess what...the TV feed from ABC just went down and we can't watch the football game!!!!! Good lord!...oh, its back...we are laughing!! Oh and we just SCORED!!!!!

If you're a beadmaker or curious about my comments about the Orrbs press being difficult for me, I'll try to make a succinct response here:

Let me clarify - I don't hate the Orrbs press AT ALL...I think its a neat shape and if you're at all interested in one, by all means BUY one! I don't mean to sound like I'm blaming the tool - not at all...its not the tool that is struggling, its ME...and the reason could be many things - any time I get a new press I have a learning curve before I get used to it...when I bought the lentil press, the squeeze press, even the mini pillow from Zoozii, I struggled with the amt of glass to use for a good shape...

I think I'm just so used to making lentils and squeezes that I now have a pretty good idea by just eyeballing the amt on my mandrel and can hit them pretty much 98% of the time..(yes, I still have some mistakes with them, there's always a short ramp up for me to get used to the amt of glass again, cause each size is different)...

So, here I am, used to making lentils and squeezes pretty successfully, and now I have 2 Orrb presses and things aren't going as smoothly as I'm used to...I'm finding that it takes more glass than I anticipate for each bead, so I often press before I should, and thus the bead is wrecked if I've decorated it, and I have to start over...that's my fault, tho...

I'm also experiencing that the top part of the press seems to wiggle slightly when I press the bead, causing the two sides to be slightly off center...but not every time, so that also tells me that its ME who's having to adjust when to press, how molten the glass should be, how strong I should apply pressure...I've also noticed that some of the sizes still cause the 'dreaded dimple' at the hole - now THAT is something I need to talk to the manufacturer about, as i've seen that in the press mold itself, and there's nothing I can do about that...but I'll email them today and ask if there's something that can be done...in the meantime, I am still playing around, still getting my footing, getting used to how much is enough glass, how hard is enough pressure to push...all that good stuff...

and of course, I want it to be perfect NOW - something I don't expect from my students, but I sure would like for it to work for me..and it doesn't..I just need to be patient and keep at it...tis all...