Show Me Some Appreciation

Keri's Peony Window is a thing of beauty.  The assorted colors mixed within the single flowers and each leaf give it a realistic effect rather than a coloring book feel.  As the topping on the cake she used an iridized clear background glass that pulled in the pinks and the greens of her flowers.  Finally, her clear heavily texted border doesn't distract from the subject matter yet makes a statement of its own.  Perfect.

 

Susan D's Birdhouse will actually become a Bird Bath with the addition of a small tray of water that will reside in the bottom.   This went together seamlessly due to Susan heavily focusing on making all of her straight lines perfectly even.  The colors match together wonderfully and the finished piece will light up her back yard marvelously. 

 

 

 

Annette's medium Teardrop Nativity Scene has a lot of tiny pieces that pack it with tons of charm. She said that realizes now that AI patterns need PLENTY of tweaking to be able to make them in the real world.   We cut down the number of pieces in this by about half and it's still a taxing piece of stained glass to make when you consider that it's only 7 inches wide!    Her next one has been blown up to 160 percent of the size of this one so although it will look the same when you see it done again it will be larger and somewhat easier to cut and grind (and foil).

 

 

 

 

Let's Circular Geometric window is actually a flower when you look at it closely. There are green trailing stems throughout the outside edge that are populated with leaves. When you make a window like this the symmetry is so very important and Let certainly excels at the attention to detail that it takes to make this look so darned good.

 

 

 

 

 Linda F's Mardi Gras Crown is now complete and has something special about it that we've only ever seen done once before.  Pay attention to the purple band near the bottom of the crown and you'll see the roman numerals XLIV.  This was achieved by applying quarter inch foil on top of the glass to form the letters and then soldering on top of that foil.  I think the end result really makes this crown fit for a King (or Queen).  It's a one-crown-fits-all kind of crown!

 

 

 

 

I wish the picture below did better justice to Paula's Unicorn Box. It was made with all iridescent glasses and sparkled so brightly but the lights in the shop kept reflecting in the glass when it really showed off its true colors so I had to settle for this slightly off version of its colors. It's still beautiful though and we already have two students saying that they'd like to make a box soon. Paula is apparently a trend-setter!

 

Check out the amazing amount of progress that Barbara made on her Santa head Window!  I can always tell when someone is excited about the project that they are making by the amount of time it takes for them to work through the various stages of it and this project is moving along at warp speed!

 

 

 

Sheri has had to put her current project (the Rooster Head) aside for a bit as she makes this Coffee Cup Suncatcher that will be made with shards of a broken painted plate.   She's made something similar to this before using willow ware in a similar pattern so this should go together fairly easy (for her) since she already knows the ins and outs of this type of construction.

 

 

 

 

Cheryl is doing some phenomenal work on her Mardi Gras Pelican.  She sometimes has trouble with small pieces but she's handled the top of the bird's Crown with relative ease!  She'll be foiling this before you know it!

 

 

Lorrie had to make another pair of cat mirrors quickly so she immediately set upon tracing out all of her pattern pieces onto her selected glass and then cutting everything out.  Unsurprisingly, she managed to not only cut everything but to grind them as well as foil everything before class ended.  That's a mighty impressive amount of work in an incredibly short amount of time, but that's Lorrie for ya!

 

  

 

Kandise is making a second Treble Clef Heart Suncatcher but this one is about half of the size of the last one that she made.  Regardless, in just one class she managed to pick out the color scheme, cut her glass and grind it all before calling it a night.  She's a go getter!

 

 

Next up we take a look at the Triple Flower Window that Catherine is now making.  Although it contains three flowers the right side is a mirror image of the left side.  Also, the flower in the center may look like the other two flowers but it actually is different altogether.  You'll be able to easily see what I'm saying when we come back next week when possibly the other two flowers will be cut out. 

 

 

 

 

Cindy's large Cobra Suncatcher is not only colorful but it's coming into shape quickly.  She's been grinding as she cuts so you can be sure that as soon as the head is complete she'll be able to begin surrounding all of her pieces with copper foil.  Once that's completed the soldering itself will take her far less time than it took to do the preceding work which means that this will be completed before you know it.

 

   

 

Susan R has cut out about 25 of these little leaves and began grinding them as well. When these are completed they will be tacked onto wires witch will form the stems that run throughout the front of her Watering Can. I think that there will be some foiling in her future with us!

 

 

With the letters all cut out for the name section of her Flower and Bee Name Window, Elaine will be working on the background pieces of the letters when she comes back in. I always say that Letters are tough to do and that's because the background sections are even worse that working on the letters themselves! That said, I have no doubt that Elaine will handle the next step with determination and ease.

 

 

 

Julie has the majority of her Curving Geometric Window cut out now.   She only has two and a half small sections left to complete and judging by the amount of time it has taken her to get this far I'm certain that this will be all cut out when she comes back into class. I think that choosing the colors for the missing pieces will be the hardest part of her next class with us (and that won't be hard at all).

 

 

 

 

MiMi now has all of her first Celtic Cross ground and has moved onto the foiling stage of the creation process. Everything is perfectly uniform and precise and her foiling is fastidious and precise as well. It won't be long now!

 

  

 

Lara got all but the border of her second Lily Flower Window cut out and ground now that the blue that she is using for her sky has been located.   This is a mirror image (of sorts) to the first Lily that she made but it's a different placement which is something that I love to see done in 'mirror image' pieces.   There will be a third flower panel that rest between the two Lilies and it looks to me as though she'll be working on that one soon now!

 

 

 

 

It would appear, with Martha's Alligator having its front side completely soldered, that this window will be finished in its entirety when Martha comes back in.  There's little that can stop that from happening at this point in time. Will there be a sewing machine in her future?  Come back next week to find out what that's all about.

 

 

 

Here's to Friday getting here quickly!

  

Paul

 

Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

There Are Eight in Croatia

Kandise mounted her colorful Dragonfly within and also extending outside an 8" metal Hoop.  This not only added stability to her project that would pull apart over time but added another layer of charm to it as well.  By making the wings all different colors she appended more complexity to the amount of work that had to be done but the end result shows that it was all worth it.  

 

 

 

Lorrie came in with a goal in mind-- to begin and finish this cute Kitty Mirror for her Grand daughter's Birthday. She cut glass, ground it, foiled it all and then soldered it. At the end of the night she walked out the door with this cute wall hanging mirror (the mirrors are the eyes, btw).

 

 

 

 

Next up we look at the Sand Dollar Suncatcher that Lara made to be placed into a Bookend. Here we get to see exactly what that looks like as a completed project. It's great work all around but we always expect that from Lara.

 

 

 

Here is a group shot of the last 20ish or so Cross Hearts that Cindy has made. You know what they look like close up and I believe that this pile of them looks impressive enough to merit inspection!

Nettie is hard at work on her Nativity Teardrop but we aren't thrilled with Joseph's face so we are leaving that blank and then tacking everything else together so we have a steady work space so we can then redraw it.  Mark my words, this is going to look just fine after Joseph gets a bit of a face lift.

  

Catherine has traced out her next pattern, cut out the pattern pieces for it and has selected some of the glass that she'll be using. The actual glass cutting will begin next week. 

 

 

Here we reveal the stained glass Crown Window that Linda F has been working on in secret as a surprise. Alas, she had to work on it while at home to complete it in time and she was caught red handed by her daughter who this window is being made for. With only the second side left to solder I think that well be looking at this as a finished piece when we see it again.

 

  

 

 

Julie has moved from a Heron Window to a unique Curving Geometric Window with flowing colors. She's already begun cutting glass and is working with the colors that she knows that she wants to use first.  She'll fill in other colors along the way so she can see the actual 'weight' that each color brings to the window.

 

  

  

Bee has been working on this while she's been at home and brought it in this week with everything cut and ground.  She spent her night foiling glass and is moving along at a nice steady speed. It's an impressive design and I do believe it's one that she came up with on her own. Color me impressed! 

Lara is out of blue for her background on this but during the week we found a sheet of it hidden away because it's the same blue glass that I had used for a window that I recently made.  It would appear that I never put the unused blue glass back into the rack so in the end we didn't have to order any and wait for it to be shipped which means that more of this background will be cut when Lara comes back in. 

  

Paula's Unicorn Box has its top almost completed. Once this is soldered the five piece box bottom will go together lickety split! I love Paula's work and colors on this-- you'd swear it was a real unicorn.  Beware of rainbows! 😉

   

 

Cindy's large Cobra Suncatcher is taking shape rather quickly. She's another student who works at home between classes and that's why she gets so much done in a rather speedy way. Her use of color is striking to say the least. I can't wait to see more of this completed.

 

 

Here's another example of a 'Worked On At Home' project. This Celtic Knot Cross has officially been ground and is now awaiting some foil. MiMi doesn't waste any time at all and her symmetry on this is extremely impressive. Repeating patterns are always tricky to do because just one error in grinding creates a problem that stands out like a piece of coal in a sugar bowl.

 

  

 

 

Jan managed to fill in the missing pieces for her Three Dog Window and after it was all tacked together she selected and cut the pieces that make up the border to surround her dogs. I know what Jan will be doing when she comes back in. She'll be grinding and foiling border pieces. 

  

 

With the background all cut and ground for her Alligator, Martha then set upon foiling each of those background pieces. By the end of the night she not only had them foiled but tacked into position as well. That's what I call progress!  I see a border on her horizon.

 

  

 

With her Flower and her Bee tacked together Elaine has decided to tie them both together into one window along with a name. The pattern we came up with ended up looking like this. It looks like she'll be cutting and grinding the letters for the name when she comes back in.

 

 

 

  

With all of the glass for her Flowering Geometric Window ground and fitting together perfectly, Let then moved along to foiling all of her glass. There are a lot of pieces in this so it may take a while to get to the tacking stage but knowing Let it will be 'Worked On At Home'.   Let never fails to surprise me!

 

 

 

Mary has almost completely ground the center oval for the Address Window that she is making. With less than a quarter of the pieces left to grind I suspect that she'll begin foiling this when she returns to class.

 

 

 

 

With the front of her pink Flower Window all soldered (and looking great!) all Keri has left to so is to flip this over and solder the back side same as she did the front. For all intents and purposes I'm thinking that this window will be a done deal when we see it again.

 

 

Check out this chicken head!  Sheri's Rooster has completely taken shape even though it hasn't even been ground yet.  Sheri also plans on doing a little work on her project while she's at home so we might see some of these pieces having been ground and pinned into position.

 

 

Susan R's Watering Can has been soldered and it only needs some touching up before she can wash and color this.  Alas, that won't be the end of this project.  Next she will then cut out 26 leaves which will then cover the front of this after they've been tacked onto wires which will form stems that the leaves are flowing from.  In other words, what you see below is only the beginning.

 

 

Lastly we see that Tracey is back at work on her Rose and Dragonfly Picture Frame. She's just about ready to begin foiling this and once that is completed the rest of it should go together fairly quickly.

Susan D ran out of class so fast that I didn't get a picture but I won't hold that against her.  When you're as busy as she is you don't waste time when it's time to cut and run!

Carry on, mates!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

No More Wire Cutters (But More Cowbell)

Julie only has a few projects under her belt which made her Heron Window a bold choice of patterns to pick but now that it's finished I know that she feels she chose wisely.  She has learned so much while making this and she never shied away from the more tasking sections of the pattern.   She could have omitted all of the flowers that stretch across the top of the window but in the end she decided to keep them and it honestly balanced the window wonderfully.  Then she decided to make a double border as well which, yes, increased the time it took to finish the window but which also made it so much more aesthetically pleasing.  Julie did a marvelous job on this for sure! 

  

 

 

Lorrie's Address Window is stylish but all the extra's don't detract from the most important part of an Address Window--the numbers themselves. She was locked into a color scheme but she went to extremes with it to create a wonderful earth toned window that no one would ever call bland or boring!

 

 

Bee's Long Tall Iris looks stunning especially with the multicolored glass that she used as an inner border. Alas, I don't think you can go wrong with this pattern because as many times as I've seen this made I've never seen it done looking anything but striking. Bee's rendition is no exception.

  

 

 

 

Catherine's Spiderweb was made from a single sheet of an iridized clear texture which she accented with a Spider made of glass nuggets for the body and wire for the legs. The construction of the spider is certainly tricky but like everything else there's a trick to making it easier to assemble. A wonderful Halloween design for sure!

 

This is the first of Barbara's three beveled center Crosses.  The dark royal blue is right up my ally so of course I like it!  There's an art to putting the nine piece Crosses together and Barbara knows what it is now so I'm expecting more Crosses brilliantly made by her.  

 

 

MiMi is working on a Cross in the form of a Celtic Knot which is really looking spectacular already.   If memory serves me well (which it usually doesn't) this is the first of a pair of these fine pieces of art!

 

 

 

Elaine was back and in just one night she cut out a bumble bee and even managed to get it ground as well.  That's pretty darned amazing for someone who is essentially a new student! 

 

 

 

Cheryl is hard at work on her Mardi Gras Pelican Window and is currently working on grinding all of the pieces that she's got cut out.   We've decided that she'll cut the background after she tacks all of this together to help with squaring things out and aligning the top section around the crown which looks like it might be a little tricky for her.

 

 

 

Cindy is working away on a somewhat complex suncatcher of a Cobra.   The pattern itself just misses fitting on a piece of standard sized paper so it's fairly large for a suncatcher, but when you look at the number of pieces you realize that it entails a lot of small pieces regardless. 

 

 

Meanwhile Sheri is hard at work on her Rooster Head.  In this post you can really see how it's all coming together.  This is going to be vibrant in the sunlight for sure.

 

 

Kandise has all of her Dragonfly cut and ground. I'm still amazed at how easily she handled the most difficult part--the segmented body! Those tiny symmetrical pieces usually slow people down and elicit  some cuss words, but not Kandise!

 

 

 

 

Susan D is just about set to assemble her three dimensional Bird Bath. Since this will be holding some water (which is a lot of extra weight) we are going to have to give the roof some extra attention to make sure that it's secured as strong as possible. I suspect that we'll be using wires for some extra strength.

 

 

 

Jan is back and is working on her Three Dogs Window. We've had an issue or two involving missing pattern pieces so she's going ahead with foiling and tacking what she's completed before she cuts out and missing pieces.  This will prevent things from sliding around and allow her to cut new pieces by simply tracing out the holes that she has when it's tacked together.

 

 

 

Betty's Luna Moth has been assembled and is ready to be soldered. As you can see (if you look closely) she also has one of her Butterfly Silverware pieces just about finished. She's bent the wire for the antenna all by herself and it came out perfectly.  Betty is one of our premier wire benders and that's no lie!

  

 

Let has her Circular Flower Piece well under control now even if she believes it looks a bit of a mess sitting here in its unground state. The thing is that ALL stained glass windows look disheveled before the grinder touches all of the pieces. I think this is going to look lovely.

 

 

Here we see two more Crosses that Barbara has ground and ready to take home with her to be foiled. I've shown her how to ensure that the Crosses balance perfectly so that they don't hang crookedly so she'll be fixing the one on the right before she tacks it together.

 

  

 

 

I somehow didn't manage to get a picture of Susan R's Watering Can and Flowers project but it's all foiled now.  That means that Susan is about to cut out her 24 or so leaves which will be tacked on wire vines and then tacked all throughout the front of her Watering Can.  Here's a picture from last week to refresh your memory.

 

And that is what we call THAT!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks