Pottery beginner, need help.

"DKat" wrote in message
...

pulling cane

And what is the finished piece called? They used to do paperweights
with
them as well.... Looks kinda like an old fashion quilt.

not quite. you make a brick or rod of glass somehow. you can either build
it up with rods, strips, frit, etc, then melt it together in a flame or
kiln. that's called a cane. attach a punty or grab it with plier-like
tools on each end. heat up in a flame and pull making it be very thin.
pulling cane. you then take the long rod, cut it into slices (saw,
nippers, glass cutter, etc). these slices are called millifiori. you then
use these slices in making other objects (paperweights, bowls, etc).

Not quite what? When I was a child they used to make quilts from pieces
of fabric that were cut, shaped and formed around of all things on bottle
caps. These were pieced together and looked just like the pieces of glass
works I'm referring to that were around quite a bit at the same time.

For the glass pieces that I'm talking about the canes were cut into slices
that were put together much like you would form a pattern for a quilt.
This 'grid' of glass pieces had a liquid glass 'ball' (yes I'm making the
jargon up because I can't remember what we called it) pressed onto it.
You could then leave it as a solid piece (paper weight) or blow it out as
a bowl, vase, etc.

http://users.ticnet.com/mikefirth/paperwts.htm#SETUP Look at the second
item down the page. Then look at the bottom of the page to see how it is
constructed.

description on how to make cane

http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibi...millefiori.php

the finished slice of cane is called millifiori. it isn't usually seen by
itself, but used in producing other things, like

encasing it in clear to make a paperweight, or laying out on a heated flat
metal surface and picking them up with a glass bubble on a blowpipe, or
arranging a bed of them inside a ring mold, then fusing it in a kiln to make
a flat blank of solid glass, then forming that blank in a ceramic mold or
blowing it out to make a bowl,