Making Marbles at Tuffnell Glass.

Last weekend, the Hubster and myself had booked ourselves on a Marble making course at Tuffnell Glass.

So, on the friday evening, after work, we set off from home and drove for 3.5 hours to Bridlington, where we had booked a little seaside B&B.

Saturday, we arrived at Tuffnell House headquarters where the marble class was being held.

Our tutor was Jan Rigden-Clay, lovely lady and very very talented. 

I had previously met Jan, having been on a course with her at the Flame Off, with Pati Walton.   
Here are some of Jan's own marbles.

So, saturday, we learnt to make marbles, or rather I did.  Andrew can already make a decent marble, but he wanted to learn some different techniques.  I had only made a couple of really bad ones before in soft glass, the glass we were using on this course was Boro.  It works a little differently and I struggled a bit to start with.

I was getting so cross with myself for producing such badly shaped marbles.

The first one was just a two colour marble, to learn how to form the nice round shape.

Second, we did a vortex marble, with frit.  It is like looking into a deep pool.

The final one of the first day was a "wig-wag" marble.

Sunday was a bit better, I must have had my marble head on as I seemed to be getting the hang of it.

The first one of this day was a "Fireworks" marble, with a deep depth of dichroic glass inside.

This is the back of the same marble.

Another frit vortex marble.

And an implosion marble, I enjoyed making this one and seeing how it turned out.

Definately something I plan to continue, I really enjoyed making them.  Even though each marble can take 1 - 1.5 hours to make!