Monday, May 31, 2010

The Night The Lights Went Out

We only had one night of classes this week due to a power outage during a storm that knocked out the power Tuesday Night just as Janice and Grace arrived. Cheryl showed up a few minutes later and by 6:45 we decided that at this point the power was going to return too late to really get anything accomplished. An hour later we had lights. Oh well, at least we had some fun catching up on what's going on with each other. It's not just about learning stained glass-- it's about keeping up with friends as well!

Roxie was in the following evening and since she had electricity at her disposal she was able to finish soldering the last half of the back side of her window. I did some minor touch-ups for her (she's very good at soldering!) and then we washed her window, colored it and took this picture. It's finished and it looks GREAT! I think Roxie should be really proud of herself.

Julie finished grinding her Iris window and has begun wrapping glass. She has about half of it foiled so it's moving along nicely. If it weren't so thin we'd get a better look at it here in the thumbnail. Make sure you click on it to get a closer view of Julie's great work.

Patty is moving right along and her sock monkey is just about completed. There's no doubt that this one will be headed home next week. I love the colorful colors she picked, especially the border.

And Suzie traced out her pattern and began cutting the glass for her first real project. I guess it's easy to see that it's a Fleur De Lis. She's going to have to grind out the insides of the bottom left and right curves since they are so small and tight. You can only cut so much glass before you need some help with the grinder. You'll see what I mean when you compare this picture to the one that's posted in our next update. Suzie's getting very comfortable with the glass cutter and her work shows it.
With a little luck we'll have power next week and more to show. I just got work that Yvette has broken her ankle so that's going to slow things down on her Peacock Window, but it will be right here waiting for her when she's able to come back to class. We all hope that ankle gets better soon, Yvette!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Friday, May 21, 2010

Butterflies, The Self Propelled Flower

Now then, if you've been reading this Blog for a while or even for just the last 3 weeks you should know the answer to the following question: What happens on the Blog when we get a new student?

(insert drum roll here)............

We get to see a new Butterfly! Suzy has joined our Thursday night class and started out with our standard pattern. The wings are actually done in the same glass that our last Butterfly was made out of but the body and the head is different. Suzy did something that I don't believe any other student has ever done-- she came into her first class with the pattern for the window she wants to start on her second glass. I wish it were always this easy! Anyway, here's a look at Suzy's first finished project which turned out perfect if I do say so myself.
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And speaking of Butterflies, Jane isn't going to stop making her Butterfly Lawn Ornaments any time soon. I'm not sure if that's good or bad because I know that repetition can be a boring thing, but it does mean that she's making some money doing this and there's no doubt in my mind that making money with your hobby is a good thing. Here's one of her latest finished pieces.

And Jane also started 2 other while she was in class. She got them cut, ground and wrapped and will most likely finish these at home.

Roxie's window doesn't look much different from last week unless you look at it really closely. The picture probably doesn't have enough detail to show you what she's accomplished so I'll just come out and tell you that the front side is completely soldered and a quarter of the back side is as well. Roxie seems to be a natural at soldering because there isn't a whole lot to touch up on this window. Look to see this one completed next week.


I wasn't fast enough with the camera to get a picture of this Sock Monkey that Patty is working on with all of the pieces in place. You'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that it's all ready for a border. She finished grinding the rest of her pieces and then started wrapping them. What she didn't finish in class went home with her (hence the missing pieces in the picture).
Julie just needs to grind the top flower of her Iris window and then she'll be ready to begin wrapping. This is another window that is nearing completion. Julie seems to be coming into her own on the grinder and is starting to utilize the (1)<-(2)<-(3)<-(4)<-(5) method of grinding. Cheryl came in and cut all of her underwater leaves and then went ahead and ground and wrapped them. She picked out the glass for her sea floor and got it all traced out but only got 3 or 4 pieces cut before she called it a night.

That's what happened here at the shop last week. And I'm proud to say that we are now up to date with the Blog. Never let me fall behind again, ok? :-)

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

A Slightly Moist, Oily Powder

Grace has finished her LSU box. Rather than go with a stained glass panel on one side of a printed card she decided to go the extra mile and actually cut the LSU out of glass. Both sections lined up perfectly and the purple border brought it all out. She attached it to her box bottom and the rest is history.


Jane made 7 (yes, SEVEN) butterflies this week. It seems that she's selling them faster than she can make them. She knocked these out so fast that I didn't manage to get a picture of them so I'm reposting on that she's done in the past so newcomers can see just what it is she's making so many of.
Yvette cut out the pattern for her bottom teardrop feathers in her peacock window. She immediately went to work cutting the centers out of a royal blue3 glass which will contrast perfectly with the small slivers of yellow that hang from the bottom of each teardrop. She has the blue cut out and the yellow ready to go next week.

Roxie has all of the glass cut, ground wrapped and even tacked together for her bird window. Now that she has the border completed she's ready to begin soldering her window. I don't think there's any chance that we can see it finished next week but I'm sure we'll see this window washed and ready to hang in 2 weeks.

Julie's spending her time at the grinder and she's past the halfway point on her second of 2 Iris windows. She's really starting to understand the intricacies of the grinder. Most people think you just push the glass against it and it's ground, but there's much more to it than that. Most times there are a number of places that you can grind a piece to get it to fit. The trick is figuring out which way makes a sturdier window.
And here we are with Janice nearing the end of her last 2 windows. The center piece is all ground and ready to be wrapped. Once that's done she'll fit the background glass behind it and be ready for a border. It fun to see how quickly she gets through the cutting and grinding of these as compared to the first few she made!

And there you have it. Yet another Blog update gets thrown out onto the internet.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Pearls go with anything.


The ladies of Thursday night gave me a valuable lesson in accessorizing. I'll try to remember it if I ever get any pearls!

So here we have Roxie's window almost completely wrapped. There are only a few small pieces left to go which will easily be handled during the next class. After tacking it together Roxie will need a border and then she'll be ready to solder this. It looks GREAT already.


Yvette began working on her Peacock window this week. She had to trace out the pattern onto pattern paper and that took a lot of time but she was still able to get the body and head of the bird cut before she called it a day. As you can see it's fitting together nicely even though it hasn't been ground yet. Next week she'll start working on the Peacock feathers which fill the bottom of this pattern. Come back and check out our next update to see the bottom half of this window.
Naughty Margaret is looking better than ever here. She's almost completely ground save for the flower on her hat and her ears. Patty is just flying through this project. I guess it's true: Practice does make perfect.

I screwed up on my last posting of Julies window. I was thinking that she had the background all cut out but she didn't. That will teach me not to wait so long before writing these Blog updates. My memory is obviously not what it used to be. So this week Julie cut all of the clear background to her window which means that when we next see her she'll be spending quality time at the grinder getting this fitted together so it can then be foiled.

Cheryl cut out all the little pieces to the fins (flippers???) of her Sea Turtle and then got it all ground! All the points of yellow that you see in the picture are the yellow plastic heads of the pins that are holding this altogether. Cheryl learned a long time ago that if you use a lot of pins while you are grinding you'll get done quicker. I just can't stress the use of pins enough.


Janice and Grace took the week off because it was Janice's birthday and Grace wanted to take her mother out to dinner. I couldn't possibly say No to that! I hope Janice had a great Birthday and a great night out. We'll see the two of them next week and hopefully Grace will finish her LSU box.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Knotty Margaret

We have a new student this week and a new student means that we get to see a butterfly. If you're new to this Blog you'll soon see that every student spends their first class making a stained glass butterfly. Yvette is our newest student and she'll be coming in during our morning classes. She made her butterfly out of various shades of blue and it came out perfectly. Yvette had no problem during any of the many steps it takes to get this sun catcher finished. She's decided that she likes doing this and that she'll be starting off with a big project. And I mean BIG! She'll start her Peacock window during her next class. Had she not shown a natural ability to do this I would never have let her start off with such a large undertaking, but I have a good feeling about her and her proficiency at this.

This is Knotty Margaret. She's a sock monkey and although I never cared much for monkeys I can live with this one because she's decidedly happy and not too terrifying at all. :-) Besides, Patty said that she was going to make this whether I liked it or not. lol She came in with the pattern almost completely drawn out and we only had to make a minor adjustment or two before she started cutting this out. This is what got accomplished on her first night of work. Not bad at all!


Roxie had begun grinding her window and this is how it looked when she took it home to wrap on Thursday night. Everything fits beautifully and there are only about 5 pieces that need attention. In a window this complex that is just a drop in the bucket. There's still the matter of a border to put on this but we won't tackle that until this is wrapped and tacked together.

Julie began working on her second Iris window a few weeks ago and she has all but the background cut out. I neglected to take pictures of this in it's semi-finished state because it's so tall and difficult to fit into the frame. That's one of the reasons we're only seeing a section of it this week. Next she'll work on her clear Rough Rolled background glass and then she'll be spending some quality time at the grinder!

Janice began to cut out her second to last window. We're out of the Red/Green glass so she wasn't able to cut out both windows at once like she normally does. She was able to doubled up on everything but the Red/Green so the missing glass shouldn't really put her far behind at all. By the time this window is ready to go home we'll have the glass and Janice will be moving right along again. Next she'll cut the red pieces and then make sure it all fits before she starts wrapping.

When Cheryl came in last week to repair her Camper Window she just fell right back into place with Janice and Grace. She ended up deciding to return to class and picked out a pattern which involves a Turtle and a tropical fish to do for her bathroom. It will be a companion piece to the Tropical Fish window she did about a year or so ago. She had liked the look of Steve's turtle so I just re-adjusted the size and then added Louis' tropical fish under it . We tend to mix and match a lot here and it always works out nicely. This week Cheryl worked on her turtle, next week she'll tackle the many odd shaped pieces that make up the turtles fins.


Lastly, Grace got the LSU script section of her box cut ground and tacked. The background has been picked out and I suspect we'll see this box completed soon. The biggest problem is deciding what glass to use for the trim of the top.


That wraps things up for this week. We're quickly getting caught up now as there are only 2 posts left to go to bring us up to date.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

March 31st thru April14th

We've been running extremely late with these postings but things had slowed down a bit and then we had a week off due to a vacation on my end of things during the Easter Holiday. Here's what we accomplished in the last week of March and the first two weeks of April.

Patty just about completed her second Fleur De Lis window. With the border tacked on and the front side soldered all she needs to do is hit the back side with a finishing bead and then color this up. This will be finished before you know it.

Roxie got the sky portion and her leaves cut for her bird window. I feel the need to point out that this is NOT ground yet it looks like it fits together perfectly. Roxie is cutting her lines off when she cuts her glass and the results are astounding as you can see with how well everything fits into place.


Grace decided to make am LSU/Fleur De Lis box and got started by tacking together the FDL portion of the box top. She'll be cutting out the LSU section next.


Well, look what we have here-- Patty's window is completed and ready to be installed. It always looks a little different when the window is all cleaned up and there's some light behind it. As I predicted earlier Patty was able to finish this one much more quickly than she did her first one. And even though it went quicker the quality of her work is the same if not better!


So, do we have any long term readers that remember this blast from the past? This was one of Cheryl's first projects (it might actually be her second window) and it came in for a repair this week. Apparently it suffered some slight damage when it came off one of the hooks it was hanging from. There were 5 broken pieces altogether and Cheryl managed to get them repaired and the window up and hanging again inside of 1 week.


I sort of jumped the gun and posted the picture of Janices window a week early in our last post. While she was in she colored her window and began cutting out a new one. I don't have any pictures of that however but I have the next Blog update written and ready to go-- all I have to do is click on the POST button so expect to be back here tomorrow when I click it so you can check out what happened during the week of April 21st.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks