Three More Windows Are Completed

Well after weeks of work I'm happy to reveal Jane's completed Trellis window. There were times when I was sure Jane thought we we taking a very round-about way to get to the end of this project but now that it's finished you can see how every side-track paid off. I dare anyone to find a single line that is out of place. Everything in this window lines up perfectly and everyone looking at it can easily see the weaving effect of the white trellis. This is another job well done for Jane.

Grace has finished her diamond shaped Fleur De Lis window. Her background glass is almost twice as thick as her other glass which meant she had a hard time wrapping it since the 1/4 inch foil wouldn't cover both sides. It would have taken the better part of 2 weeks to get a larger black backed foil shipped to us (Black backed foils above 1/4 inch are somewhat of a specialty item) so rather than waste time Grace simply wrapped each piece of glass twice; Once hanging the foil off the front of the glass and then a second time hanging it off the back of the glass. As you can see, it turned out great.


And this week marks the end of Janice doing her Fleur De Lis windows. She spend the class washing , coloring and then waxing her last window in a series of 3. She's going to hold off on doing her French Doors, but she hasn't ruled them out yet! Instead she'll next be working on 5 mid sized windows for the front of her house in a pettern that still needs to be determined. Janice's work speaks for itself (as you can tell from the photo below) so I know these next 5 windows will look fabulous.



Barbara got the background cut out for one of her 2 Daffodil windows and even has most of it tacked together. She also has a good 2/3rds of the second windows background all cut, ground and wrapped as well. She's taken the first one home with her to solder and she will wrap the the second one when we she her next. There's a center panel to these two windows but it will be far less complicated. It will share the same blue background but will have an oval shaped piece of clear textured glass in the center of it so she will still bee able to see outside of the window. Did I mention that Barbara drew up this design on her own? :-) These are going to look GREAT when they're installed.



Sheila ground the oval sections of her 2nd cabinet door and then started wrapping it. I suspect that we'll see her finishing this next week which means that we'll have our second picture of one of these windows installed in its door. She's almost at the halfway point on these 4 windows and I love her pattern-- it's simple but eye catching. I'll have to see if we can get a picture of all four of these installed and in place when she finishes them all.


Lea is moving quickly on her last China Cabinet Door insert. With all her diamond bevels finished all she had to do was make a few quick straight cuts to get her background glass finished. A few quick skims across the grinder wheel made sure that she had no burrs that prevented anything from lining up. We cut some strips for her border and she's just about set to solder this door! She needs to wrap the border pieces but she really made short work out of wrapping he background this week. I'd say that Lea really has the hang of wrapping. And it's a good thing too because she's planning on making 18 or 19 bevel centered cabinet door inserts for her kitchen!

Jane not only finished her Trellis window, she also began working on this Deer Head window while she was at home. We added a border and she'll solder this up at home where it will them be finished. Jane is one of the quickest workers we have attending classes. She gets so much glass work completed while she's at home I wonder if she has any free time to herself during the week!

Cheryl continued working on the background of her Bear(s) Window. It's hard to see at this point but the sky is cut up into many different pieces which will be much more apparent after they've all been wrapped. Cheryl took it home with her so I'm sure when it returns she'll have all that she cut and ground this week completely wrapped. That leaves only the tree trunks and the foreground. Cheryl has adopted Gerald's method of grinding as she cuts her pieces. This isn't a good way for beginners to work because it's possible to make a mess if your cutting isn't precise. Needless to say, Cheryl is having no problems at all having her pieces line up. I guess we can't call her a beginner anymore. :-) We're in the process of altering the pattern a bit and I'll explain what's changed next week when we get to see the actual change.


Next up we have Pam's Fleur De Lis window. Rather than using a bevel for the Fleur De Lis she cut it out of a yellow/gold Crepe glass. After tacking it together she cut out the background, tacked that all together and then cut, ground and wrapped a thin inner border. Once that was tacked into place she picked 4 bevels for her corners and then cut some baroque glass for a thicker outer border. She still needs to wrap and tack the 8 pieces of her outer border but the amazing thing is that she got most of this accomplished while she was in just 1 class! She had cut and ground her Fleur De Lis while at home but most of the work was done while she was in class on Tuesday morning. Now that's a fast Fleur De Lis Window!


Although inclement weather kept Gerald away from class we did get a picture from him of his 4 LSU Tiger Windows now that they are installed. Here's a look at his finished work as seen from the street.

Before we wrap this up I'd like to say hello to Mary Lynn who was out this week due to her husband being in the hospital. We hope everything works out and that he's released soon. We're all there with you Mary Lynn (and Paul!).

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

No One Mentioned The Missing....

Well, Lea has finished the first of her 2 China Cabinet Door Inserts and it looks better than anyone ever imagined it would. It's a simple design with just the slightest hint of color that makes for a really elegant looking piece of glass. The bevels for her second door are already put together so Lea will be cutting her background already next week. I apologize for the CRAPPY background but we didn't have any china to place behind her door. :-)


Not be be outdone, Sheila finished the first of her four cabinet door inserts. Last week she had everything cut out so when she came in this week she wrapped all her pieces and went right to work with a soldering iron. By the end of the night we had the finished piece of glass mounted into her door. This is another simple design that adds so much without overpowering whatever she places behind the doors. Again, forgive the LOUSY background. I need to come up with some way to take a better picture of clear cabinet doors.


Jane has the front side of her window all soldered so we added the final border and the finishing channel to her window this week. You can really see the trellis effect in the picture this week but wait until you see it hanging up next week. With only the back side left to solder I know that Jane will waste no time and have it finished for next week. She plans on coloring her solder in black patina since that will really stand out against the clear glass and all the white. Look for the finished picture in our next Blog update.


Janice is just about finished with her last Fleur De Lis Window. In fact, the only thing left is for her to solder this last corner on the back side of her window. It looks like she'll be doing some clean up and coloring work next week so she can take it home and hang it. Next on Janice's list of windows to make are her French doors. We don't have a design yet but we still have time. I'll bet good money that Janice will be happy to be working on something a bit smaller than she has been working on for the past few months.


Cheryl finished grinding out her bears and went to work on her background glass. She's got her sand and her brush cut out and ground. Next week she'll add some water along with some trees and this will really start to take shape.


Barbara planned on getting her background all cut for her two Daffodil windows but UPS screwed up and never delivered her glass. After making a few calls to them it turns out that they had tried twice to make the delivery but our address doesn't exist. (Obviously our normal driver wasn't the person making the delivery.) UPS called back around 11pm and got directions to the shop but it really didn't matter because when the glass arrived on Thursday it was delivered by our normal UPS man who very much knows where we are located. I suspect that Barbara will find at least one of these windows will have the glass cut out for it when she comes in again next week. But it wasn't a total loss for her as she did get a pattern all squared away for her next set of windows.

Grace is almost finished with her window as well. We tacked on the last border and then added the zinc channel before she called it a day. What she doesn't know is that old Eagle Eye saved the day after she left. Russ looked at her window sitting on the work table and said, "What happened here?" I couldn't understand what he was getting at until he literally pointed it out to me; When I tacked the last border on I was swinging the window around in circles to I wouldn't have to reach over the window. Apparently I mixed up 2 of the pieces when I did that and the grains where running in the wrong direction on 2 sides of the border! Luckily the channel was only soldered onto the first side and I was able to pull it apart and redo it before Grace comes back in next week. In fact, if she doesn't read this, she may never even know that I almost completely screwed up her window! :-) The picture below was taken AFTER the mistake was repaired so don't waste your time trying to spot the error...



Gerald came in with a small drawing for a design he plans on doing for his mother's front door. It's a large oval shaped opening and when Gerald is finished with it there will be Irises all throughout the opening. We scanned his 8 inch tall design idea into the computer and then resized it to be 5 foot tall. After printing it out Gerald was able to make a full size pattern and make any adjustments on that rather than the smaller pattern. We have to take into consideration the length of the tallest pieces of glass to make sure that we can get glass in that length. But there are tricks to break pieces down into smaller ones without affecting the flow of the overall design. We may end up incorporating a few in this window.


Jane brought her Niece who is staying with her for the next few weeks into class with her. Pam decided that she wanted to make a few things while she was here in the class so she began working on a Whale Suncatcher. Truth be told, she had started cutting it at Jane's but she pretty much finished it while she was in class this week. All that's left to do is wrap it and solder it now. We've decided to add another lead line to make it easier to hang when it's finished. All in all, things are looking very good for this and I'm sure we'll see the finished project next week. Pam has taken a Fleur De Lis pattern home with her to work on throughout the week so expect to see some progress made on her second window next week as well.


And that about wraps it up for classes this week. Come back again to see even more finsihed window the next time we all get together.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

It's All Coming Together

As you can tell from the first picture below we gained a new student this week. Michael made her butterfly using 3 different shades of pink glass. I don't think she'll have any problems making stained glass especially when she handled each step in the process like she's done this before. Here's a look at her first project-- a butterfly suncatcher.


Jane has finished all her tacking and began to actually solder her window. The only thing we need to add is her final border and this will be finished. Now that it's all tacked together she's able to get it out the door so she'll be soldering this at home instead of just working on it during class.


Janice also finished tacking everything together on her window and has begun the final soldering process. This is the last of her 3 Fleur De Lis Windows and it looks like she'll be working on a lot of smaller windows next. We'll let you know what she has in mind after she finishes this window (which should be soon now).


Lea will definitely be finishing her window next week. she's got half of the front of this soldered now. I was amazed at how quickly she got her border wrapped during class. And when we set this into her china cabinet door it fit like a glove. Look for the finished picture next week.


Mary Lynn has all of her Cockatoo cut and ground now. She began wrapping it and I suspect that it will come in finished next week. Mary Lynn is pretty sure of this too because after she ground this bird she traced out a pattern for her next project--a Parrot. I may have the names wrong here because I'm having a hard time discerning one bird from the other but you get the picture!

Sheila ground and wrapped the oval for her 1st of 4 doors. After tacking the oval together she set it on top of the clear glass that was originally in the door and then got the clear all cut and ground. With a quick soldering job ahead of her I'd expect to see this one going home with her next week. Normally I do everything I can to avoid glare in the pictures I take but I purposefully caught some in this so you could see where the clear glass is in this window.


Barbara managed to pack up all her glass before I was able to take a picture of her Daffodils all laid out on the pattern. This was the only thing I could get a picture of-- a box of her glass pieces! :-( But don't worry, you'll see plenty more next wee when she has these two mirror image windows tacked together and we cut out the background.

Cheryl is waiting for her new computer to arrive and to keep her mind off of it she's started working on a large bear window. She got the bear and its cub all cut out and then began grinding the pieces. Look for an expanded view of this window next week when she starts to cut out the trees and forest that the bears are framed with.

Darlene has finished cutting all but the background of her Mickey Mouse Window which means that she'll be spending a lot of time on the grinder next week getting everything to fit together before she starts wrapping all her pieces. Once we have it tacked together we'll cut out the background. This is slightly smaller than the normal round Mickey Mouse that we do here, but it's easily just as nice.
Fran was back with us and decided to mix things up this week. Rather than making another of the same diamond shaped Fleur De Lis, she elected to make her new window in a hexagon. I think this one will be getting a black Baroque border next week since she took it home to work on during the week.

And speaking of Fleur De Lis, Grace has hers just about completed. She used black Baroque (what is it with Fleur De Lis and black Baroque glass?) for the thin inner border and then went with a glass that resembled her background glass in the final border. For added stylistic flair we all agreed that the grain of the last border should run in the opposite direction of the background glass. It's a nice effect although it's hard to see in the picture. Grace will solder this next week and possibly finish it.


We only had one finished project this week but as you can see we'll have a lot to show next week when classes resume yet again and even more work gets completed.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

We Talked About Cheryl All Night Long

I guess you can call this the Special Holiday Edition of our Blog since the 4th of July is nearly upon us. Although we only have one finished project to show a lot of work was accomplished as projects get closer and closer to being completed.

Barbara finished soldering her window last week while she was home and brought it back in for me to look over and possibly touch up before she gives it to her daughter this coming Christmas. Her soldering has improved greatly since she made her Cross Window just a few short weeks ago. Now that this is finished Barbara is contemplating wrapping it up and delivering it as an early Christmas gift (something that always seems to happen when people finish handmade gifts early). Barbara did a great job on this window and it certainly shows. I think she should let this finished window be enjoyed for the next 6 months rather than tucked away somewhere unseen. :-)


Lea finished cutting out the remaining green colored strips that trim all of her bevels and then held her breath as we cut up the clear glass that she originally had in her doors. She's using the original glass for her background and if anything were to break we'd have a hard time matching it. Luckily, it was very easy to cut and there were no problems at all. The only thing left for this window is the final border and then Lea will be able to get working on her second matching door. It's hard to see in the picture but all the clear glass is cut, ground and laid out in place just waiting to be wrapped. I suspect that we'll have this window all cut out next week...



Having finished her Humming Bird Window, Barbara drew her new pattern all by herself and then asked if anything needed to be changed. Well the answer was a decided "No!" because the pattern was perfect. We added the lead lines that will break up the background glass but nothing had to be changed on the Daffodils at all to make this into a stained glass window. Barbara will be making 2 of these windows in a mirror image format. She has all the yellow cut out and took the time to make sure that all of the black line she traced on her glass was cut off before she got to the grinder. This means that she'll only have to skim her glass to get it all to fit together. She's taken the green glass home so she can cut it all out before she comes back to class. Look for some major progress to occur on this window in the next week.

Ann ground all the glass she cut out for her Humming Bird Window which means she was able to take this home to wrap. We were somewhat surprised to see Ann this week because we had thought she would be on her way to Alaska but we all forgot that he class this week fell on Tuesday rather than Wednesday which meant that she was able to make it in for a third class before going on vacation. She certainly had no problems getting everything ground-- as you can see it all fits together perfectly. When we see Ann again we'll get the circular background all cut, ground, wrapped and tacked. Meanwhile, I hope she has a great time in Alaska!

Janice worked on the final border of her window and now has only 3 pieces left to cut (the arrows in her picture show the missing pieces locations). These are the last pieces of this project which means that we're sure to see her soldering this next week since she'll be able to knock out 3 pieces inside of 20 minutes (Janice is a pro at this now). She's taken the border that she cut home with her so she can wrap them outside of class and tack them into place as soon as she comes back in. Janice plans to work on her French doors when this project is completed.


Sheila began working on 4 cabinet doors that she has in her house. She's using the same pattern for each door so this week she began cutting all the the pieces that form the oval frame for all 4 doors before she puts any together. It slows her down initially but once they're all cut and ground she'll be able to have all the inserts replaced quickly. She has almost all the glass cut for each of them so I know we'll see her slaving away on a grinder next week. :-) You can see her pattern below along with some of the glass she cut.


Mary Lynn had a rough idea of what she wanted to make and spent the first part of the class deciding on a specific pattern. In the end she decided to make this parrot that we found in a catalog in the colored bevel section. Mary Lynn is simply cutting it out of glass rather than using pre-cut bevels (and saving a LOT of money doing so!) She only has about 4 feathers left to cut and then the leaves and branch. I'm expecting to see Mary Lynn grinding next week (just like Sheila will be) unless she manages to grind while she's at home, which knowing Mary Lynn is entirely possible! Isn't this a nice pattern?

Jane finished wrapping all of her glass and has about half of her window tacked together now. This means that next week she'll be able to take this home to solder rather than working on it solely in class. The reason it's stayed in the shop this long is because her window has about 425 pieces in it that are, for the most part, fairly identical. That combined with the fact that it doesn't easily fit through the door means that Jane had to work on it here in class until it was all tacked together so we could hold it sideways to get it out the door without having it slide of the board and mixing up all the pieces!

Darlene began work on her Mickey Mouse Window and made incredible progress. SHe traced out her pattern to make a second copy and then colored it so she'll know what color each piece is when she has it all cut up waiting to be traced onto her glass. Darlene had some grip issues with her left hand which makes cutting glass rough for her but this week she fought with it and seems to have come up with a 'death grip' (her terminology) which appears to be working quite well for her. I told her that we'd manage one way or another and Darlene is proof that if you really want to do something you can find a way to get it done. She got a lot accomplished this week and should be very proud of her work. It already looks like Mickey Mouse and it hasn't even been ground yet!

Last but not least we have Grace's Fleur De Lis Window. She picked a clear glass called Niagara for her background which is about twice as thick as normal glass. This normally wouldn't be a big problem but she has two really thin pieces in this window which are really working our nerves here. We've left them for next week so we can rest a bit and collect our wits before tackling them again (we've already broken them twice). And poor Grace is double wrapping the Niagara glass because the foil we have doesn't fit around both sides of the glass. Even with the 2 broken pieces missing you can get a good feel for what this window will look like she finishes it. I really like her colors AND Grace's work on this.


So that about wraps it up for this week. Everyone have a GREAT 4th of July and we'll be back sometime next week. Hey, the Blog is actually finished early! I guess it IS possible to get this done in a timely fashion. lol

Paul
Bayou Salé Glassworks