Sunday, September 19, 2010

What is a Twistie?

A twistie is a lampworking term which means to literally twist different colors of glass together. Twisties are used to decorate glass beads.
There is more than one way to create a twistie. I have my preferred technique, which I am going to share with you.

In this case I am making a twistie of green colors to use as a vine for pumpkin beads.
You can find pumpkin beads for sale in my Ema K Designs Etsy Shop.


  I begin by gathering a ball of glass on the end of a rod. This is my primary color (green)



While making twisties a lampworker
uses the glass rod as a handle, we call this a punty.







I round the gather and flatten the end, preparing for the addition of the next color.
The next color I am using is black.

I heat the two colors together, round out the gather and flatten the end. I will continue this process until I have added my third and fourth colors, which are yellow and another shade of green.
After adding the fourth color I have to move my punties or handles. The punties must make contact with all four colors of glass in order for the twistie
to include all the colors.
   

I have four colors and my two handles. I am ready to heat the whole gather and begin twisting and pulling out the glass.

      

The result is a thin piece of glass, usually 2-5mm thick, which can be used as decorative elements in the beads I create.

       http://www.etsy.com/listing/55903812/pumpkin-time-focal-lampwork-bead-by-ema

1 comment:

  1. This is awesome, Ema! Thank you so much for sharing this. I need to learn twisties and I especially love your pumpkin vines. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete

I always appreciate your thoughts and comments, so please feel free to share. I encourage kindness in all words.
Ema

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