Barbara has made an absolutely beautiful Magnolia window in record time! She wanted the flower to be the focal point and therefore decided to use clear glass rather than a color to make her border. By using clear with a heavily reeded texture the glass frames the subject without pulling your eye to the edges of the window. Stunning!
Sheri's Mushroom Suncatcher is wonderfully charming. Her colors and her work are perfection and she's really stepping up her game as you can easily see! The matching of the underside of the mushroom perfectly compliments the lighter but brighter dome. It's an excellent combination of colors.
Lisa's Luna Moth recover beautifully from the faux pas that I made two weeks ago with it. Lisa didn't like the way the circular moon's grain lined up (it didn't) so I set a compass to the size of the circle and traced out a new pattern for it. After we cut the circle out of glass we discovered that the compass had changed to a slightly smaller size thus making the new moon shorter than the last one. This resulted in the bottom part of the moth hanging out of the circle but Lisa didn't mind and in the end one of the other students said that they loved the effect without realizing that it was never meant to happen. So we're calling this a happy accident!
Susan R is busily creating a fleet of Reindeer! This is her second one in as many months but I also believe she made one sometime last year as well. You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall, the most famous Reindeer of all? Time will tell if she makes one with a red nose...
Let made this five Bevel Cross look easy. Allow me tell you that it's not. The key here is maintaining symmetry while working with only a few thin, long pieces. It's so easy to get overzealous and grind too much away leaving you with an unbalanced cross which then hangs crooked. This one, though, id beautifully balanced.
Betty is making more of her Silverware Dragonflies because they just fly out the door! In this particular case it's all about demand and supply-- her customers are demanding them and Betty supplies them!
Sheri also completed this Lemon Corner Accent piece but I didn't get a completely finished picture of it since it hadn't been washed off and colored before she left. Still, you certainly get the gist of this stunning accent piece, don't you agree?
Lisa is also replacing the clear glass in numerous Lanterns with colored glass to make them fit the room better. This one has been changed out for blue and will be used as table centerpieces for a wedding.
Martha is hard at work on a picture of a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air. With all of her background completely cut out she's about to get down to the meat of the matter-- the car itself. All I can say is that it's looking GREAT already! I know that the thin pieces of the car will certainly lend to some breakage while cutting but I know that in the end Martha will achieve perfection!
Now, if you want to talk about someone who's willing to go that extra mile to make a window look great then look no further than Lara. Her African Sunset window gained a three layer border this week which consists of a whooping 198 pieces! Why so many? Well it's assembled from two different brown textured glasses which will form an intricate weave pattern that runs around the entire window. The end result is going to be stunning!
Let's Victorian Rose Window just needs its final border and then I'm sure this will be finished quickly. The glass just came in as I am typing this so I know she'll be cutting border pieces in the morning. And what a difference that border will make on this (already) lovely design.
Sheri's hot on Mushrooms and when they turn out looking this good before they are even soldered you can understand why she's making so many of them. Placed inside of a 10 inch metal hoop these are wonderfully and whimsically delightful.
Jeannette's Easter Basket got a background and border this week which means that this only needs to be soldered. That means that this will easily be ready in time for Easter when this will decorate her window nicely.
Susan R began cutting out this beautiful Rosebud Window and I do believe that it may be the very first time someone has done this in white. We've seen red (of course) and yellow as well but as far as I can recall we've never seen white. Perhaps this will start a new trend. I don't see why not.
Meanwhile, Susan D is working on a Bumblebee and Honeycomb design. Interestingly enough, she thought that she had brought a honeycomb pattern with her but when she went to assemble her hexagons she realized that the pattern wasn't of a honeycomb but rather some other geometric design that involves hexagons. Luckily, honeycombs go together easily whether you have a pattern or not (as long as the hexagons are cut evenly.)
And Cindy's Deer Head window got its antlers cut and ground this week. That means that this will be ready for a background glass when she comes back in. After that the border will go together lickety-split.
Angie finished grinding all of her newsprint glass and now that everything fits together she's begun wrapping her background pieces in foil. All of that work she's put into this is coming to fruition now! Double or single border? I really don't know but I do know that the newsprint adds so much that a single border would not look out of place or lacking.
MiMi's second Traditional Window is well underway now. Her background has been cut to fit the perimeter opening of the central design and will be sliced and diced into its respective pieces upon her return. This is moving along wonderfully at practically breakneck speed.
With the background halfway cut out for her Fruit Bowl, Linda F is almost to the point where she will be needing some border glass for this classic window design. I believe that she'll be using the same border that Let has been waiting for which means that I have good news for Linda: Her glass is in!
There are only a few squares of red glass left for Cheryl to cut out to finish her second Cardinal Window. Once that's done she'll be able to solder this and call it complete. We're also going to use a trick for the cardinal's eye that I stumbled on which looks incredible and only takes seconds to do. More on that later.
Judy's Crab is so very close to getting it's border attached. This week she ground a few more pieces of background glass and then wrapped and tacked together all that she had. There are two pieces that had snapped in half (long, thin pieces are quite notorious for breaking at the grinder) and we're going to fill them in one way or another when Judy comes back.
June's playful Cat got it's first border cut, ground, wrapped and tacked into position which then allowed us to cut a final wider border to finish it off. She may very well begin soldering this upon her return. At this point in time he/she has a somewhat dd look on its face but that's only because the pupils of the eyes have not been painted on yet.
Shelley's Window certainly makes a statement now that you can clearly see the automatic rifle that resides across the flag. There are only a few more pieces left to grind and Shelley says that there won't be a need for a border on this so this is nearing completion.
Jan's back and her Our Lady of Guadalupe Window only needs solder at this point. This week she filled in the missing pieces of her background layer and then added a root beer border to tie it all together. It won't be long now.
Ann's newest Modern Cross Suncatcher was cut, ground, wrapped, and tacked all inside of a three hour period. Even she said that she can make these in her sleep since she's made so many of them over the years. When you find something that works you stick with it.
Lastly we look at Betty's current works in progress. One of her beveled Cross Panels is almost completed (that one should see some light behind it next week) while the other is waiting for a bigger piece of background glass which will change the overall look of the window from the first one. I'm still unsure what she'll do with the beveled Fleur De Lis but I'm sure I'll find out when I see Betty again!
And there you have it. It's been a while since we'd had a Hints and Tips so I figure I'd best promise that we'll see one this week so that I'm obligated to get one out the door!
Paul
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