Collecting yesterday

Rob asked me why I am not "making hats" right now.  He's right. I'm not sewing as much as I had planned. I did finish this hat and list it this week. I have some plans for aggressive paddling this fall and making hats doesn't feed into them. In fact, I'm rather an obsessive hat maker and once I start I have a hard time stopping. I don't paddle and make hats on the same days.

But I WILL collect sea glass, clean and catalog it, and paddle like a maniac on the same day. Hunting shells and glass feeds into my walk-about nature. That's probably why I started collecting sharks teeth and rocks all those years ago.

Logo much?

Little 'ski at boat ramp

Yesterday I went out and did an average of 4.25 miles an hour, for a total of 10 miles. I stopped on three beaches, and then came home sandy, accidentally sunburned, and happy. I cleaned and sorted the glass. Here's my find:

Pile of loot

These rows are Grade A specimens. Thick, colorful, and quite "sugar coated," like a gum drop.

There's some pretty shell fragments in there.

Close up of a bonfire piece that's twisted. It's quite pitted, but looks like it's suffered a more recent break on the near edge.

This white piece marked by the arrow is going to be devilish hard to photograph. It's shape and missing edges indicate great age, as well as the pitting and sugar coating.

I like this. I enjoy being outside on the windy wide river, with sand in my shoes. I wouldn't have it any other way. During the hard winter I'll wrap some of this glass in silver and sell it. Some other pieces will be sold in batches on etsy. Either way, I'll send it to the new appreciative homes it deserves.

Stages of Sea Glass

It all started in my twenties when a friend, a geologist and avid shark tooth hunter, showed me how to spot shark teeth on beaches. Ever since, I've been looking down at the sand when I walk a beach or land my vessel. As a result I have picked up a number of shells, teeth, and sea glass over the years.

I moved to Accokeek in 2017 and discovered a number of beaches have more than their fair share of glass and shells. The tides and currents obviously deposit these treasures there.

Being a connoisseur, these are my observations:

The longer the glass rolls around the river, beach, whatever, the more "sugar coated" or "frosty"  it is. The sugar coating is the surface of the glass roughed up by the action of the rocks, shells, and sand. There's "sugar dusted" just a bit of “sugar,” "powdered sugar," and granulated "sugar coated" like a gum drop. Passed the sugar coated phase the glass begins to develop deep pitting and can sometimes be difficult to discern from rocks.

Example of really old, 100 years plus, glass, deeply pitted:

This brown piece is just beginning to deeply pit. You can see the pitting around the bottom edge.

Newer glass is thinner and smoother. The newer, the thinner, to be exact. I typically avoid new glass which I call "raw glass," unless it has a good color and at least some patina.

Above example: Left piece is likely 1950s - 60 or more years old, a bit thicker, and sugar coated. The piece on the right is newer glass probably 1970s, thinner, and powered sugar coated.

Another powered sugar example, like the right hand deep blue piece above:

Examples of granulated sugar coated, and thick:

The Coca Cola Contour Bottle was introduced in 1916. At least two of these pieces were certainly from a Coke bottle. These pieces and all the others in my hand are much much thicker than anything that was around in 1970 or later. These pieces are old, but not older than 1916, most likely. They have the classic granulated sugar coated patina.

Sugar dusted:

Another sugar dusted. Note that the edges are smooth but the glass surface is not very rough. When held these pieces feel silky. I find these pieces more often on sandy beaches that lack stones.

Last category I often find is the bonfire glass. I don't hang around people who would throw glass bottles in fires, but I probably did 25 years ago. Still, I didn't recognize what these were when I first started finding them. It took some one on facebook, an Aussie actually, to point out these came out of a hot fire. Where they were collected, a private beach, there hasn't been fires in many years. Therefore, it's hard to date them. But they are very interesting for sure, especially the ones that have numerous colors.

Bonfire glass, powered sugar, sugar dusted, or sugar coated... they all feed in to the grading system, which I'll cover another time.

Hey, I'm back!

I realized after a few months blogging in various formats that I would still like to blog about my artistic process and review some stuff. I still have this space and might as well use it.

It's early September. Traditionally it's the "hat season," when I ramp up production of hats for the Yule season. And I am, working on hats, that is.

The above hat sold as soon as I posted a little video of it on facebook.

This hat shipped to Japan recently.

The hats are selling, but my attention is somewhere else.

I've found a market for sea glass. There's two things to my advantage in the sea glass market. Firstly, I live in an area that has a lot of old glass on the river shores. And secondly, I'm in training and so paddling a bunch by myself. When I'm alone I can easily land over and over to poke around between the low and high tide lines. Two birds in hand, so to speak.

 

This pursuit has given me great pleasure. I'm out on the river training, paddling hard against the wind and tide, and collecting. I've always been a collector of sorts but have forced myself to shed many of my collections through etsy. Etsy has allowed me to send my treasures to new homes where I know they will be valued. So I can collect, but importantly, NOT KEEP.

Three birds. I've got my ducks in a row.