The thread drawing on this piece was made with colored glass threads, arranged on a steel table with the aid of a hand-held torch. They were first made by Chihuly’s student Kate Elliott and then by Flora Mace. Chihuly shaped a thick-walled cylinder on the blowpipe, and then he carefully picked up the drawing onto the glass while the threads were still hot. At the end of 1976, Chihuly moved on to new work inspired by traditional Native American baskets. He says: “Both the drawing pickup technique that led to the Navajo Blanket Cylinders and a new way of blowing very thin and misshapen basket forms derived from Indian sources. These became two of the most influential series that I created.”