After spending a few hours doing some shopping and browsing at the "big" mall (read: it has more than 7 stores like our hometown mall), we went to dinner at the Black Waters Lounge. A fun place that usually has live music, typically a jazz trio, it's lots of cozy tables and dark lighting to set the mood. It's restaurant week, so they had a set menu that included lobster bisque or roasted pear salad, a choice of 3 entrees, and a dessert. We also got some fancy cocktails since they have a pretty unique menu - and we were early enough for happy hour! $5 martinis? Yes please!
After dinner we went to Lake Superior Art Glass for a class on making wine goblets. So cool!
I wasn't really sure what I expected, but I guess I didn't actually think that we would be doing the torching and spinning and parts that involved fire. I was a little intimidated about the process, and a little nervous since I was not 100% sober after our dinner cocktails!
I made Travis go first, so I could review the process while he was doing it. The two instructors, Dan & Sam, were incredibly helpful during the whole process. Honestly though, you can't mess this up. Just keep spinning, and if it feels like the glass is getting out of control, you just pull it out of the flame. It cools in like 5 seconds, so there's really no way that you can drop hot, molten glass on the floor, or yourself, or wherever.
We got to pick our colors for the stem of the wine glass, and they had premade the bowl & foot for each glass since that is really the hard part. I chose a sparkly light green, a really pale lavender that is supposed to show it's color in the sunlight, and then a dark purple (or maybe cobalt - not sure yet!) for my stem. I was very pleased with how it turned out!
We had to leave the glasses there overnight. After we finished our stems, one of the instructors connected it to the bowl & foot and then it goes in the kiln overnight to set. I can't wait to see the finished product! Since we don't live nearby, they will ship them to us, so it'll be a few days before we get them.
When we left, it had just started snowing. By the time we were driving out of Duluth, which is known for being on a hill, it was like a complete white out! Thankfully we were able to get out of town by just going slow, and a few miles out of Duluth the snow had completely stopped. But it was hairy for a little while there!
Have you ever taken a glass blowing class? Do you get nervous driving in inclement weather?
Sounds like A LOT of fun!! I am really interested to see the finished product! We went on a tour of a glass making factory on our honeymoon, but we weren't able to participate in the process.
ReplyDelete