Which Piece?
I often have students ask which piece they should grind to get something to fit and the question is invariably answered without my even having to look: "The one hanging over the pattern line." Any piece that is over the line needs to be ground and most times that means that BOTH pieces in question need a trip to the grinder. In the picture below you can see that the white piece with the red arrow pointing to it is over the line on its left. You could get things to fit by simply grinding the two sides of the amber piece where the blue arrows point but that only makes the pieces fit together. Just because something fits together doesn't mean it's correct. You can get a round peg in a square hole if the peg is small enough. The lines on the pattern aren't there as a recommendation, they are the guidelines that all your pieces need to fit within if you want your project to look like the pattern.
Next you can see that I've ground my pieces perfectly so that none of the glass hangs out over the black pattern lines. This guarantees a perfect fit and (most importantly) a finished piece that isn't distorted.
Here's my cross suncatcher after everything has been ground. Black line shows around all of my pieces which means that there's room for foil without having to worry about anything twisting out of shape due to the thickness of the foil pushing pieces out of place. We'll be coming back to this picture in future weeks to describe other aspects that you need to pay attention to while making stained glass.
Now that we have that out of the way we can move along to Betty and her completed Pelican Window! You'd never suspect that a section of her sky was replaced unless you've read our earlier Blog Post a few weeks ago when we discussed how to blend in replacement pieces. Betty really likes her choice of glass for the water splash and I concur, it looks perfect.
Barbara H put the finishing touches on her Heron Window this week so we have her finished piece below. Allow me to state for the record that she's doing great with her soldering. She had the perfect amount on her window which meant that touching it up and giving it a little finesse was really very easy to do. In the end Barbara walked out the door with a very beautiful window as you can easily see for yourself.
Brenda has her Red Fish Window all wrapped up and out the door! I knew that this was going to look great and any trouble that Brenda might think she had while making this should be wiped away when she looks at her finished results. It's not about how quickly you can make a window, it's about how good the window looks when it's completed. And Brenda's soldering is in a class all by itself.
Cindy's been working on multiple over-sized Suncatchers and these are a few that came completely together this week. I have to ask though, what's with all of the Christmas suncatchers in July??? (You'll see what I mean when you scroll down further.)
Susan R completed her Garden Trowel Lawn Ornament and it's ready to be staked into her front yard. Susan did this project completely on her own including the wire work that so many people have problems with. For Susan, however, it was no problem at all,
Our other Susan, Susan D, completed two of the 'living' items for her Cornucopia. I specifically took the picture of her humming bird and bee from a side angle to help show the 3D effect that these incorporate. It's not easy to capture the effect in a picture but I think this view helps show what Susan accomplished here.
Becky S has gotten all of her Eagle and Flag Window cut and a good major portion of it ground as well. Becky will go the full nine yards with this window and cut a black glass pupil into the yellow eye which will be a learning experience that I know Becky enjoys working through. And we'll explain how hat is done in a future Tip Of The Week.
Jeanne's Tiger Face is really taking shape now. With a lot of the white cut out as well as the all important eyes, this cat is starting to look downright ferocious. Jeanne paid particular attention to the eye color and let me tell you that this was the color that really worked this tiger!
Mary Grace resumed work on her Welcome Window and it's also really coming together. She isn't going to cut out the word 'WELCOME' out until the top section of this window is tacked together and at this point in time it doesn't look like it will be long before all of the glass is cut for the top picture section.
Roxanne is our newest student in our weekly classes but she's worked with us in four or more Weekend Workshops. Because of this, we've decided to forgo the standard butterfly project and let her start things off with an Eagle and Flag Window. This is the same design that Becky S is making but slightly smaller. As you can see, Roxanne has the cutting process pretty well mastered because there's only the white feathers of the Eagle left to go before she can start grinding this for a perfect fit. I must say that this is quickly becoming a popular pattern here in class.
Linda F has started working on this medium sized Flowing Geometric Window and already has it completely cut out. True to form though, she's worried about her cutting abilities because it isn't fitting together perfectly but that's just the way things go when you are working with glass. I know that this fits together wonderfully and as long as she's at least cutting ON the line (which Linda is) then she's doing just fine. I honestly don't think this will take her very long to complete.
Linda L's Wine Bottle Window was completely assembled this week and she's even begun soldering the front side. Russ had a great idea which allowed Linda to add a faux label on the full wine bottle that I think really sets this off in a wonderful way. I wish I'd have thought of it myself.
Susan R also found time to get this Welcome sign of her own started. This one features a Pineapple which is pretty much the universal symbol for Welcome! Her text is almost all cut out and the rest should be fairly easy for Susan.
Terry has all of the glass attached to the top half of her Spiraling flowers Window and even has the zinc channel on it as well. She's got the front completely soldered and has flipped this over to start working on the second side now. A new project will most certainly be in Terry's future.
Sheri's Pig Window is just awaiting a border at this point. This week
she cut out the remaining pieces of her background glass (including the
large tricky curved one atop the pig) and then took it all home to wrap and tack
there. I wish I had a picture to show you of what she's accomplished but I seem to have forgotten to use my camera so you'll just have to look at this Photoshop enhanced picture that I took of her window last week. At any rate, it's time to decide on a border now!
And Rowena continued working on her Long Tall Iris Window which is coming together wonderfully at a nice brisk pace. There's no doubt in my mind that this will be all tacked together when Rowena returns to class next week.
Next we see that Cindy still has some smaller items under way as well as oversized suncatchers. Here she is working on an etched cross suncatcher, a Christmas Candle, and a flying pig of her own.
And Jan has gotten her ball and net all wrapped and tacked together. When she comes back in there will just be a few background pieces and a border left to go. Jan's become far more efficient at wrapping her glass which proves that practice makes perfect.
Okay, so it must be a hot summer for Betty because she's trying to cool down mentally by working on Snowmen! She's moving along nicely on these and I have no doubt that they'll be completed in time for the holidays. It's just a shame they can't really help you cool off though.
Martha's Seafood window is being foiled with the same attention to detail that the rest of the window received. This is going to be a spectacular window when it completed, mark my words .
Bonnie made this John Deere Business Card Holder but you can really see it in all of it's glory with a card in it. That's not to say that it isn't wonderful though, you just can't easily see the yellow and green color scheme that makes it perfect for a stack of John Deere Business cards (which I don't have)...
And lastly there's Myrt who made this flying pig for her sister. I only hope that there's no significance behind it. Now that this is completed I believe that she'll start working on a Mermaid window when she comes back in.
And that about wraps up what happened in our classes for the second week of July. It all starts again tomorrow so the fun is about to begin again!
Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment