Where'd the studio go...

Wow - wow - wow, things have been so busy here.   I'd like to be able to say we are all packed up and on our way to North Carolina but that's just not so.  Over the holiday we packed up that one U-haul.  It made it safely to NC and my son and his friends unloaded it into the house. 

We took about 10 days following the holiday to relax and regroup.  Now we are back to packing up.  I've just about torn apart the upstairs studio where I worked.  The soldering area is nearly packed.  A few more odds and ends and it will be down and ready to hit the door.  Here is a picture of my pile. Rolling mill, casting equipment, and boxes of glass and glass I will hand carry rather than box. 

This has been how the work is going in the basement.  That is where I lampworked.  Today Brian and I finished packing the majority of the glass.  You know - wrap the rods and pack 'em up nice and sturdy like they ship them to you.  All totaled I have six boxes weighing about 50# a piece and then there are two milk crates with downspout that have more in them - including the odd glasses and expensive ones that I want to take safely in the back seat of my car.   I kind of figure when it's all said and done there is between 350 - 400# of glass in my stash.  Uh, I'm thinking I better get back to making beads as soon as I get my studio back up in NC. 

The final "box" of glass - except the boro rods which are 3 feet long and I'm not sure I want to cut the tubing down

I've had some of that glass for a very long time.  When they used to ship glass "in the day" (LOL) they shipped it in 36" lengths.  You would nip off what you were going to use.  So when the glass came I nipped off a 12" length off of every rod to set into the short stack boxes to use.  That meant that in the long downspouts next to the desk were rods that were 24" long.  I had to go through all of that stash and cut them up.  It turned into a 3 hour project to get it all done - and I was nipping pretty fast. 

What I found when I was doing that was some pretty cool glass I had put away.  Hard to find parrot green, some great old ruby gold, and what appears to be Vetrofond black.  Could it be? I won't know until I get a chance to try it out.  Back then they didn't always put the names on things - just one tag with the number.  Frankly, it's been so long I'm just not sure anymore.  There's original coral and carnelian.  Lots of goodies to play with once I'm ready to go.

I have to say I'm both pooped by the packing and excited about having some new digs in a couple of months.   I'll be more excited when we can get this house ready and on the market and I can free up some money again.  The only untapped reserve is Daisy's hip money - she's plodding along just fine and should anything ugly and unseemly happen (it's like Murphy's law when you are not prepared) we are ready on that front.

So what's new in your New Year?