Mornin' everyone, being a lover of colored glass, me thinks I know this one :)

Annette

Hello all! I believe I know the answer. By way of a hint, I am thinking of an old gardener's trick my mother used to change the color of the flowers on her hydrangea bush. She would look around the property for a particular item, which she would then bury in the roots of her hydrangea.

Well, the leprechauns seem to have fled since we outsmarted them!

Since Annette already knows, I won't bore you with my story to go along with the question.

I will say that today a different metal is often used to make the red color, so if you know either you'll be well-rewarded.

Off to dig holes in what I hope is soft ground since our week of rain-more than seven inches this month as of Thursday evening. Woohoo. With luck, those pesky leprechauns left their pot somewhere in the yard. Maybe I'll find it if I dig enough holes!

Cynthia

OK, cottagers, here's a chance to put one over on the old chemistry teacher, because this is a chemistry question if ever there was one, and I really don't remember the answer.

I know that cobalt will make cobalt blue glass of course, and I think that iron will make it a pale green, but I don't remember anything about red or any other color.

I could maybe jump on Cynthia's clue and guess the answer, but I think I'll just hang back and watch.

ThinMan

P.S. Had a great morning at the farmers' market this morning - the second and last one of the summer for me. It was lots of fun and I almost sold out. One bouquet left --- just right for DW.

TM Cyn's hint was a goodie, think cranberry glass or even better chocolates :).

....and congrats on getting back into the swing of things, the bouquets you make up are so pretty your DW's a lucky gal.

Annette

TM, I hate the thought of the end of the farmer's market season! From one teacher to another, you get a gold star for saving that one bouquet for DW!

You are all so hard to stump! I will try to think of more fun clues anyway in case anyone else joins in the fun. ;)

I'm back - busy day at work!!

We went to Murano, when we visited Venice, to see a glass-blower! Back in the day, they used precious stones to get the colour into the glass. Not sure if they still do, though the prices indicated that might be so - ;-)) I'm pretty sure they use/used something else for church windows, though. Maybe they found a leprechaun or two!! I have used Lorna's garden trick, as well!!

TM - glad to hear you have been to market. I always loved to see those bouquets that you made - and btw, I think we are overdue for an 'Annie' pic!!

Nancy.

Nancy, a little OT but we're still talking glass right LOL.

DS1 brought us back this piece of Venetian hand blown glass for our 50th, from the same place you visited. We have it in a little lighted nook in our living room.

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I love and collect colored glass, have several pieces of Fenton along with my flee market finds and I now have a really pretty turquoise blue (Blenko blue), bubble vase, Calamity Jane found when in Texas and gave me, I'm such a lucky gal :).

I also collect depression glass mostly green, don't have many pieces but I keep looking.

Annette

I collect Israeli glass. But I know this one. I had a friend who had a full service of this stuff. I was like Elizabeth, Hyacinth Bucket's next door neighbor when around the red glass.

Hey,....keep the easy trivia questions coming. Jeez, I'm dumb at this! lololololol

OK, that is gorgeous!!! Purple is supposed to be amethyst; blue is lapis lazuli, I thought, but maybe cobalt is the more correct answer (lol); green is emerald. Get a load of this:
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This is what I bought in Venice - not at the 'factory shop' as prices were inflated there. It is paper thin. The 'green/blue/gold' striping is referred to at Florence design, I was told. I did not carry it home - I love those stores that say "WE Ship"!!!!
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This was my Grandma's - I love it!!!
Sorry Cyn - we do digress, and I should wait till tomorrow, to do that on my own time!!!

Nancy.

If I remember right from the info I read at the Tiffany Stained Glass museum in Florida two different metals were used to make different shades of red. In U.S. one is very expensive today and one is not though getting more so.

Glad to hear that you had a good day at the market, TM.

Annette, I love your vase, truly a piece of art.

Nancy, your striped glass is also beautiful.

We toured a factory which made hand blown glass in Scotland 30+ years ago. The lovely pale pink vase that I brought home was sadly broken this spring.

Cyn, hope you enjoyed this weekend after your second? week in school. In Junior High math we didn't give those precious stars. But we did give lots of smiley faces.

A dreaded household chore has the same name as the metal used to create color in old red glass.

Okay, cottagers, some of you need to be more explicit for me. I am pretty sure Annette, Nancy, and m'gal have it. Frog-full service? If you mean silver, that isn't it, but let me know if you meant something else. Lorna, not sure of the chore you referenced.

Obviously, I am being dreadfully obtuse this morning. However, I love the glass discussion and those pictures have me drooling!

Cynthia

The leprechaun makes me guess gold.

Gold

Annette

Well, actually I was thinking iron. Never put gold under my shrubs!!! Gold is, well gold, as you see on the perfume bottle. They used rubies, they said in Murano. I am not sure what the modern element would be......

Nancy.

Four stars for TM and Annette! **** (alas, not gold ones)

Gold added to glass does create the amazing red color in stained glass through nanotechnology, rather than by applying the gold, or rubies, to the glass. Who would guess that medieval artisans became nanotechnologists when they made red stained glass by mixing gold chloride into molten glass? That method creates tiny gold spheres, which absorbs and reflects sunlight in a way that produces a rich ruby color. Apparently, copper is also used today for the same result.

Thanks for playing all. I will check out the idea of rubies, but I doubt the heat would have been hot enough to melt the ruby itself to make the color integral to the glass as did the gold salts.

The only thing I could find says that Murano glassmakers use a gold solution to make the ruby red glass. I will keep searching since there are so many factories!

Huh - apparently, I wasn't paying enough attention!! lol.

Nancy.

I was going for iron, which I believe was used to make red glass.

Iron oxide will actually make glass appear green, lorna, not red.

Gold was the answer I was going for. There is also a copper compound that was used to make red. Gold prices has been rising fast while copper is more expensive than a few years ago when I bought copper for a garden project.

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Here is why I thought iron would make glass red - it sure works on soil - this is PEI. lol. In my own defense!!

Nancy.

That looks so cool and inviting, Nancy.

I grew up in eastern South Dakota on a farm with rich black soil and couldn't believe my eyes on my first visit to my grandmother's home in the Black Hills which has very, very red soil.

Iron nails made my mom's hydrangea put out blue flowers (rather than white).

Yes, Cynthia, full service. The plates were placed on pewter chargers for dinner parties. They were two elderly men who spent their lives together. Unfortunately, there was no will, and when one died his family came in cleaned the other out. I bought a Waterford vase (which I could not afford) from the other man so he could pay his light bill. It all ended very sad. That was back in the 70's. One of those things that sticks in your mind when eating Lean Cuisine on the sofa watching Match Game. :)

Sorry Bobbie! **** for you.

Nancy, it does seem strange, doesn't it? Oh well. ** for trying-not unlike students trying to convince the teacher that their answer does make sense-teehee.! ;) I did check again and everything I can find connects iron with green glass.

Frog, what a sad story-not the Lean Cuisine since I've done that too, although probably watching Jeopardy. **** for you for being so kind! Your story is just another example of the need to allow people who love each other to marry whatever the situation.

Funny you bring that up, Cyn. The 'Snake Handlers' of NC are pulling a fast one on the gay marriage ban in our state. When it passes (and I'm afraid it will), the religious right will continue with civil union and insurance benefits for same sex spouses. They have been quoted saying "Gays are NOT welcome in North Carolina.".

It is social engineering in the likes of Hitler and Nazism.