Molten glass is kept in a furnace at around 1100°C (so it gets pretty hot in the studio!)  The glass is gathered onto the end of a hollow blowing iron, and then shaped with wet newspaper while sitting in the glass blowers bench.
     A bubble of air is introduced to the glass by blowing down the pipe, and trapping in the air by putting your thumb over the end of the iron. The heat from the glass causes the air to expand, so the bubble gets bigger.
     The glass is shaped further using the damp newspaper, various tools, the mavering table, gravity, centrifugal forces, and temperature control.
     A heating chamber called the 'glory hole' is used to put more heat back into the glass.
     When the shape is ready, the piece is then transferred onto a solid 'punty iron' so that the other end of the piece can be heated and worked on.
     Once the piece is finished, it is chipped off the punty iron and annealed overnight to 'de-stress' the glass and stop it from cracking.
     The piece can be ground and polished when it is cold to get rid of any marks the punty iron has left behind.