What is a millefiore cane?
The term “millefiore” is Italian for “thousand flowers” and refers to the glass making technique used to create colored patterns in glass using long rods which are placed to form designs, then heated and stretched to make a “cane”. When sliced, each piece has the design intact and these slices, called “murini”can be reheated and applied to larger pieces of glass. When used with polymer clay, the colored clay is shaped and the design is put together like a puzzle to form a cane. The clay cane is not heated like glass canes, but is manipulated by stretching and compressing the clay to reduce the design in size as the cane becomes longer and thinner in diameter. Slices from these canes are used to decorate clay pieces and other objects in many ways, or can simply be cured and used as buttons, charms or mosaic tiles. The most commonly clays used in making detailed millefiore canes are FIMO Classic, Kato Polyclay and Premo.
