A bead within a bead

It’s a classic exercise in heat control:  make a spacer bead and then form a mandrel-wound hollow bead around it.  The balance between keeping the whole thing warm enough not to crack, but not so warm as to melt and collapse, is tricky.  If you succeed the result is a bead inside a bead which makes a most delicious rattle when shaken.

I’ve tried to make the bead-in-a-bead off and on for a few years but it’s only been recently that I’ve succeeded.  It’s quite fun to make the outer bead in clear and put some prismatic dots on the outside.  They’re quite hard to photograph well, though.