This is the paddle, striped and encased. I usually encase going around from one side to the other, but in this case I was afraid the whole blob would melt off the clear rod if I did it that way, so I striped on the clear.
I got this hot, grabbed the end with tweezers and started pulling the twistie. Then I decided that since I had a begining picture, I may as well have a pulling picture. Obviously, with both hands full, I needed help. So I called to my 12 year old (who by the way is a real shutterbug!) and asked her to come in and snap the pic for me. Feel free to ignore the mess in the background!
While she's snapping pictures my daughter says "Hey Mom, that blob at the end looks like a heart!" Huh. It kind of did. But I'm pulling twisties, so I make several more. Then I decide to see if I actually could make a heart out of the blob. I held the blob with tweezers, used the atached clear rod to make a bail and popped it in the kiln.
Then I made a bead with the twistie, just to see if it worked.
Not quite what I was going for. It looks as though some of the colors didn't make it into the pull. Nothing to write home about, but it's okay.
Do you want to see what I pulled out of the kiln? The coolest thing EVER! And it's the first bail I've made using this method that actually worked! I am sooo going to try to do this again!
Thank you for the inspiration Jill!!