First Look :: Kniphofia

Kniphofia from Creation is Messy (CiM225) is a medium orange transparent that is a bit slower to strike than other transparent oranges, but apart from that and the fact that it does not seem to opacify the way Clockwork does, it's very similar to Clockwork. It seems not so slow to strike as Goldfish was last year so it doesn't have quite as much range as that colour did. It is a gorgeous colour, though, and I appreciate both the flexibility of hue and how this colour seems to stay more transparent when fully struck.

It is very difficult to make two beads at the same time from a striking colour and have them come out the exact same colour. I made these two beads together and you can see how the one on the left struck a little deeper. In this case, I'm happy about it, because I think it might be fun to make a whole bunch of them to use in a necklace and it will be better if they aren't all identical anyway, but most of the time this is a frustrating problem. 

The only ways I've found around it are:

• to hang around in the flame (and out of it, intermittently) until both beads look fully struck like they can't possibly strike further, 
• to painstakingly restart the striking sequence in each bead after getting the initial gather on the mandrel but before starting to shape them and then being very careful to give both beads absolutely equal treatment.

But both ways take a long time, and even then I'm wrong half the time because things look so different when they're hot. When I want matching pairs with striking colours, I generally make 4 or 5 pairs and then pick out the best matches out of all the beads to be paired together.

Here are some beads made with Kniphofia:

I used Kniphofia in the stripes on the sides of these beads.

Here, Kniphofia is in the more orange of the orange stripes. The orange stripes that are a bit yellower in hue are CiM Scotch Broom.

And here, I've used Kniphofia under Clear and Double Helix Clio to make a beautiful, cloudy (because I over-reduced them) pink.