AYLESGLASS

Aylesglass is the trading name of Roberta Ayles who makes fused glass panels - a kiln-formed alternative to stained glass windows. Roberta also makes glass lamps, bowls and tealight holders at her workshop at Totnes in South Devon... Glass fusing is the technique of melting pieces of different coloured glass together. It was the earliest form of glassmaking, dating back over 3,000 years. Threads of molten glass were wound around a core to create a bead or small vessel. In later centuries, threads were pulled into straight lengths (canes), bunched together and reheated to form pattern bars. These had the design right through them, like a stick of rock... Then, about two thousand years ago, experiments led to a more viscous sort of glass which could stretch as air was blown into it by means of a clay pipe. Blown glass was quicker and cheaper to produce than fused glass, which it quickly superseded, and which was largely forgotten until recently.