I Made Mushrooms

I do love fused glass - it's one of the first things I see when I walk through my front door.

As the walls of my house fill with stuff I've made over the years...

I'm increasingly drawn to create artwork for the garden - so a fused glass mushroom workshop by The Glass Needle sounded right up my street. Susan Petrie is the glass artist who's been creating jewellery and homeware gifts for eight years as The Glass Needle. Prior to discovering a passion for glass art, sewing was Susan's crafting first love, hence the name of her successful one-woman business.

Held at H1 in Aberdeen, the same venue as the jesmonite class I attended early last year, the art-space was set up for all four participants and was bright and welcoming. We could admire Susan's fused glass mushroom samples in person for the first time, complete with the copper pipe stems she hand crafts. Safety is always paramount whilst working with glass and Susan helped us navigate the tools and materials supplied in order to stay safe.

We all practised a straight line cut before Susan demonstrated how to shape our glass into a circle. Quite daunting. Though I've been cutting glass regularly when I make mosaics, I tend to cut mostly straight lines then use the grinder to shape the glass into curves. With Susan's clear explanation of curve cutting, I'll be more confident to try this in future.

In any case, I was pretty pleased with the two reasonably round circles I managed to make as the bases for my mushrooms.

Susan then showed us how the coloured glass powders might react once fired before we approached the tantalising selection of powder pots arrayed before us. The colour wheel also helped identify how the numbered powders might look and Susan's beautiful glass bowls served as examples of the hues we could expect for our mushrooms, post firing.

It will surprise no-one that I chose Teal and Spring Green for my first mushroom!

Powder is gently sprinkled through a tea-strainer onto the glass base then sprayed with water to intensify the colour and fix the powder in place.

These little nuggets are called glass frits and they create nubs of intense colour following a visit to the kiln.

Veering out of my colour comfort zone for mushroom two, I combined orange and two blue powders with glass frit accents in tangerine.

With the mushrooms completed to this stage, the workshop was over and a very pleasant couple of hours drew to a close. It's so enriching to spend time with like minded souls learning something new.