My work project which has had me working very long hours for a very long time finally shipped, and my family was in town for Thanksgiving which gave me a chance to spend some time making bubbles in very nice conditions: cool day time temperatures (low sixties), nice humidity (60% to 80% RH) and slightly overcast skies with (mostly) only a little wind. Fortunately my family (mother, sisters, nieces, nephew, etc.) enjoy bubbles. I got a chance to try out a few loops that I have not really used since I made them: a 6 foot top-string garland wand (from Lehigh SecureLine 3/16" cotton diamond braid wrap) whose looplets are secured with twist ties (lazy me), a 6 foot top-string tri-string that is all Lehigh Secureline and another 6-foot top-string that uses the Lehigh for the top-string but a homemade card made from two strands of 100% bamboo yarn (Elite Classic Bam-Boo round yarn).
The garland worked great and was the easiest thing in the world to make. I had worried that the twist ties might somehow be a problem, but that was ot the case. It worked great. I really liked the hybrid that used the lightweight bamboo for the bottom string. It wasn't quite self-closing but was light enough that in the breeze (or if you walk backward briskly) the air pressure tends to keep it somewhat aloft. All of the bubbles were made with a 13 parts water to 1 part Dawn Pro solution that is 0.10% PEO (from either WSR301 or J-Lube) and uses 4 gram baking soda and 2.8 grams citric acid per gallon of bubble juice.
Here are some videos:
This is a VERY short video of a trippy bubble that gets caught in a vortex that spins it into a sea-star shape and then into small bubbles.
Here is some fun with the garland wand in my sister's back yard. Some of these shots are of the same bubbles from a different angle -- sorry for the repetition -- but they were so darned purdy. The top string is about 72 inches across. There are six looplets about 18 inches apart. The loop started out as a standard tri-string (maybe a slightly longer bottom string than normal) and converted to being a garland using twist ties (so that I could easily reconfigure it since this was my first garland attempt after making one with twine that did not work out so well).:
Here are some big bubbless in my sister's back yard. [COMING SOON -- COME BACK TO SEE THEM]
And here are some bubbles at Pillar Point, California. When we arrived at the beach, there was no wind but the wind picked up just as we were getting set up. There were some gorgeous bubbles but the increasingly heavy wind made it tough to close bubbles as the afternoon wore on. The loop is a 72-inch top-string tristring where the top-string is the Lehigh SecureLine 3/16" cotton cord (with core removed) and the bottom string is made from two strands of 100% bamboo yarn twisted together into a cord. The loop is not terribly thirsty. One gallon of bubble juice lasted an hour or so. One of the amazing things was that basketball (or somewhat larger) bubbles often broke off from the main bubble and were carried aloft. Those bubbles were carried at least half a mile (our guess was some were carried a mile) and lasted many many minutes (some at last 5 or 10 minutes). We would see one far away and then it would disappear and we would be sure that it had popped and then a minute later we would see a bright gleam and realize that it was still there (confirmed by looking through an extreme telephoto).
All bubbles made with this recipe.