Making a black and white twisty for lampwork beads

This is a lampwork bead tutorial from Corina Tettinger.  Lampwork is a form of glass art created with a torch instead of by using a kiln or furnace.  Her books, DVD's, tools, etc. are sold on her page and are a must have for all lampworkers!  This technique can be used to add detail to fused glass pieces as well as lampwork beads.  A twisty is basically a twisted looking glass cane decoration.

The trick with the black and white twistie is to EMBEDD the black! Black only bleads if it is used in a thin layer, like a dot or a stringer....but not if there is a solit mass of it. And, of course it makes a HUGE difference if you use Vetrofond black instead of Moretti.
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1. Make a square pancake with Vetrofond black (if you need more info, Passing The Flame shows how to get to this point, in the chapter on complex twisted cane!)

2. In "Murrini-strokes", paint on white glass, without covering the EDGES of the black pancake.

 

3. Cover both sides of the black, leaving the edges exposed. The amount of black you leave exposed determines the thickness of the black line in the twisty. If you add an equal amount of white to both sides, the twisty will appear "regular", if you have more white on one side of the pancake, one of the white stripes will be wider - which can be nice, depending on the design you are planning to make.

4. Punty up with a second black rod, heat the pancake part in the flame, make sure not to heat any part of the back punty-rods.

 

5. Once your gather is glowing red, take it out of the flame, pull apart slightly, wait 4-5 seconds, until most of the outer glow is gone (the "skin" forms) - then twist quickly, left hand towards you, right hand away from you (reversed for left-handers) - good luck!