The Commonality Of Irises

We're finally getting back to seeing finished projects each week after our holiday break. Grace made short work of her Tiger Eye/Fleur De Lis window and plans on making a second one. The first time you do any project it tends to go a bit slower than the second one will so I can't wait to see how quickly she moves on her next one. I don't think that it's possible to come out any better than this one did though-- it's perfect! Even Grace's soldering was spot-on.

Isn't Patty's window looking great? We're going to use bake-able paint pens to put the name on the Tabasco label. I was recently at Avery Island (home of Tabasco) and found some wonderful glass tile labels that would have worked perfectly for this window had we scaled it out to the correct size. But something tells me the hand printed letters are going to give this window more charm than a factory stamped label. Everyone who comes into the shop comments on how nice this is turning out.

Janice ground the second of her center designs, tacked together the 1st one (that she wrapped at home over the weekend) and then cut, ground and wrapped the 28 two inch diamonds that border the top and bottom of these windows. Whew! Talk about a productive night! The grinding on both of these center pieces is perfect. I suspect she'll be cutting the background for one of these next week. Below is the one she ground and took home to wrap this week:

And this is the one Janice wrapped while at home and then tacked together in class:

Jane almost has her 2nd lamp completed. She has it all together save for the 21 accent pieces that she hadn't cut yet. She wasn't sure on what color to use but has decided to go with the deep wine color that sits up high near the cap (which we don't have attached yet) to sort of bookend the lamp . She's already putting a final soldering job on this so we'll be lighting it up soon. And it looks like there might be a third one of these in the making. Practice makes perfect!


Julie has decided that if she's going to do her two windows in Irises she going to do the full length, so we redid her pattern and made it almost twice as long as it was last week. I just love the bud that's creeping in near the top right. It will connect to a stem that is in the window that will rest along side this one and tie it in to one large scene rather than 2 small separate designs.

And Fran was in looking to make some kind of Mallard window. After much searching she decided on these 2 overlapping mallards. I love all the feathers and Fran plans on making these look as realistic as possible. Expect to see some glass cut on this window next week when Fran returns.

That about wraps it up here. Welcome back from your cruise, Cheryl. It's been pretty quiet without you and we look forward to you ending your therapy sessions and coming back to classes to drive us crazy. LOL It sounds like Cheryl had a GREAT time but, unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. And that includes this edition of our Blog.

See you next week!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Three Eyes, 2 Tigers

Camille has completed his first project and there's no doubt that this window will go over big to anyone he shows it to. His work is excellent and the window is instantly recognizable. This is actually an odd window to work on because after awhile all you see are oddly shaped blobs until it's all soldered and cleaned up-- That's when you finally see the closeup of the tiger's face. Camille might be working on a butterfly next. We'll see what happens next week.

Here's the third Tiger eye we talked about in the title of this week's blog. Grace is all set to solder her window after getting her background and border tacked together. This window has fit together perfectly from start to finish and I suspect we will see it finished VERY soon (perhaps as soon as next week?)

Meanwhile Janice ground all of the center piece for her first window and then took it home to wrap. I can't tell you all the great comments these windows get and I received one again today about the Janice's perfect choice of pattern and colors.


Jane has 3 of the 7 sections of her lamp tacked together. She's working a lot on this one while she's at home and I'll bet anything that she comes in next week with all 7 sections ready to be joined. She still hasn't decided on what color to do the accent pieces so there are still 21 pieces to cut but that's child's play for someone like Jane.

Julie came in with an idea and when before she left she had a pattern drawn out. She got as far as tracing it out and will begin cutting this one out next week.

That's it for this entry. We'll be seeing Lea return to class shortly-- I can't wait to see what all is in store for us next week.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Framed Again

It was a quick and easy week 2 weeks ago. Classes are almost finished for this week but computer issues have kept me from updating our students progress from last week. Luckily these issues have been resolved so let's look at what happened 7 days ago during our classes.

Julie was sort of in-between projects and while trying to decide what she'd do next she opted to make another frame. A simple one night project that took her, well, just one night to do. :-) When she finished it I realized just how nice these always turn out and just how long it's been since I've made any of these. I'm going to have to make a few for the shows that we have coming up. Great job Julie, you've put a fire under the teacher's arse.

Patty is really moving along with her window. She did all the brickwork in this past class and then moved on to the grinding process. As you can tell by the pin heads in the picture (if you look closely) she has the lower left corner ground. With all the glass cut the hardest part of this project is over and the rest of this window is all down hill.

Ahh, now here's something we haven't seen in a while now. Janice is back to work on Windows 1 and 2 of the 4 she has left to make before she retires this pattern. Obviously she hasn't forgotten how to work on this because in just one night she got 2 of her centers all cut out. Now that's what I call good work!
And Grace came in with her Fleur De Lis Tiger Eye ready to be ground and wrapped. She hit the grinder and within an hour or so she had it all fitting together perfectly. She wrapped the pieces before the night was through and even had enough time to tack it together but we decided to wait until the following week for that rather than letting it sit and extra week with flux on it. Here's her Tiger eye all ready for solder.

And Grace isn't the only person making a Tiger Eye-- We have Camille making a pair of them in his window. With his borders all cut, ground and tacked together he started soldering his first project. He got all of the LSU section completed and some of the tiger eye section before calling it a day. I know he'll finish this during the next class because his next class happened this morning!
This brings us up to date. We only have 1 more class with 2 students arriving this week so we'll have a new post before the weekend.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks