Who Makes That Color Glass?

Help! - I can't keep up anymore. There are SO many colors of glass.

When I first started lampworking there were not as many glass options. Isn’t that true with just about everything? You had to cut strips off of glass sheets (Bullseye did not make rods then) or use Moretti. When I ordered Moretti it came to me in yard long pieces. What a shipping nightmare that must have been but it was easy storage on this end. Usually five or six of these rods made up a pound. I still have a few of these rods. Nah, I don’t hoard glass but the color palette exploded and they were probably replaced with other similar colors.

It also used to be easier to keep track of the colors – there simply weren’t as many. It wasn’t to awfully difficult to remember that the white was soupy and which colors reacted with others. It’s not that I’m lamenting “the good old days” but it can be hard to keep track of today’s glass companies and colors. And, that doesn’t even speak to the issues of compatibility (and ranges of compatibility within a single COE).

But, I figure it eventually comes down to something like what clothing you wear. Really, don’t we all have a tendency to pull the same couple items out of the closet to wear? Or, we grab pretty much our favorite frying pan to cook in? It’s like that with the colors too. I always gravitate back to the same ones and fight a constant battle to expand my horizons.

So, if you want to add a slightly redder orange to your preferred palette where do go to find that in the right color (and COE) now that there are so many companies? You can check the manufacturer’s sites – way to much work. One of the places you can get a good look at how the different colors look is on Miriam Steger’s Blog (when you click on her name you’re going to get the CIM chart/there are many others.) Yeah, I know most of the glass retailers have color charts but these are some of the nicest.

She's made lentils of each color and you can order posters if you’d rather have them for reference. They would actually make very good studio decoration. How nice to be able to compare the manufacturer's palettes before you place your order.