That's a Calendar

As promised 2 weeks ago, here's how Jan cut her background so that the flow of the baroque glass was maintained throughout the window.  In this example we've changed the color from clear to blue to allow you to easily see the effect.

First we started with the pattern that she traced onto poster board.  At first she only cut along the outside edge so we had a pattern to make the background out of one sheet of glass.   Once that was traced onto the glass and cut out she ground the large piece of background until she had the swirled blue piece below.

Next she cut out her poster board pattern pieces as she  normally would and then she traced and cut out the flower petals and the leaves out of their respective colors.  Once they were ground and fitted she wrapped them and tacked them together.  She then placed the glass flowers and leaves onto the piece of background glass that she previously cut and traced around the glass flowers and leaves.   She then added the lines onto the background glass that form the stems of the flowers so her background glass looked like the blue piece below.

Now comes the fun part-- separating everything.  Just remember that you can cut through the middle of any flower or leaf.   For this pattern Jan was able to make an almost straight horizontal cut through the flower petals along the top of the glass.  Once that was separated she took each of the vertical cuts one at a time starting at the bottom.   The last cut she made was the smaller horizontal curve near the middle right of the glass.   Remember to plan out all your cuts before you start actually cutting the glass.  You'll find that some cuts that were impossible to make in the beginning are simple to make after a few pieces are separated.

Once Jan had 10 individual pieces of background glass she then removed  the excess glass that the flower petals and leaves will fill.   The only real grinding will happen where the flowers and leaves touch the background.  The rest will already fit together but those pieces still need to be skimmed to take off and sharp edges that will cut the foil or make the glass crack when solder is applied.

 

Once everything is ground the flowers will fit perfectly in the openings and the flow of the glass will remain completely intact.

It gets easier and easier each time you do it.  Sometimes you'll have to sacrifice (cut through) a good piece to be able to make the rest of the cuts.  If this has to be done tack the window together leaving a hole where the missing piece should go.   Place another piece of the same glass under your window and slid it around (gently so as not to cut up the foil on the back side of the window) and find a spot where at least two parts of the flow line up (one on each side).   You'll be amazed at how easily you can fool the eye if you have two grain lines that line up.

And that's all there is to it.   The entire process listed above took less than 15 minutes to cut and less than 10 minutes to grind.  It saves time AND it makes for a much more beautiful window.  Try it whenever you get the chance-- it will change your windows!


Well now, here it is, Mary Grace's spectacular Iris Window completely finished and ready to be hung.   A lot of work went into this three foot by three foot window and although she sometimes felt overwhelmed by the number of pieces , Mary Grace never backed away from it.   The end result is incredible and that's why it's our featured window of the week.

 

Beth completed this Stylized Iris Window this week by adding the final border, a brass channel and then some hooks.   I had completely forgot that she had this on the 'back burner' until she brought it back last week.  She had stopped working on it because she wasn't thrilled with how it was turning out  but I have no problem with it whatsoever and I think that Beth likes it much better now that it's all cleaned up.

 

Terry completed this wonderfully elegant flowing Monogram Window  using two different shades of purple set on a sparkling clear textured glass.   It flows beautifully and her design is nothing short of impeccable.

 

Betty  certainly got her fair share of work completed this week as she turned out two new Mary, Joseph, and Child Suncatchers (featuring two different but similar color schemes) and another 3D Beveled Flower piece.   Betty completely understands how (and why) this was put together in 3 different sections and will be able to figure out how to put any future 3D projects together because of this project.

 

When MiMi forgot her pattern pieces last week she decided to start working on a Dragonfly Lawn Ornament.   By the time she left class she had it all cutout, ground and wrapped so this week she soldered it together and even got it attached to its stake within the first half hour leaving her plenty of time to work on her Crab Window.   Although this went quickly for her you can't find a single fault in this beautiful Lawn Ornament.

 

Terry also completed another original Cross Design using a champaign colored glass.  Richly striking, this cross is where it's at!

 

Tracey completed her pair of Breast Cancer Ribbon Hearts and they look marvelous!   She's beyond the point of having to ask what needs to be done next and the proof of that is plainly evident because she completed these Hearts all on her own.   Beautiful work indeed.

 

Angie made a familiar but always beautiful Sunflower Lawn Ornament while she was in this week.   The 3D part of this project usually intimidates people but once they see how easily it all fits together they realize that they've wasted their time fretting about nothing and Angie was no exception.  Now that she got this finished she says that there will be more Lawn Ornaments in her future.

  

Barbara H has completed her pair of Kaleidoscope Planes and they are wonderful indeed.   The color wheels where a bit tricky to get together but Barbara handled them well and they spin freely and evenly on their axle.  The end result s are two vibrantly colored planes with a kaleidoscopic view that boggles the mind!

 

Carol's Grateful Dead Logo may be an odd choice for a window but now that she has it all fitted together you have to admit that even though it's a skull, it a very striking skull and not nearly as scary  as you might have thought it would be when considering the subject matter.   Her work is perfection and this is going to make someone VERY happy.

 

Beth also managed to get her newest flower window, a Bird Of Paradise, all ground while she was in class.   Everything fits perfectly and she's about to begin wrapping this when she comes back in.

 

Lara continued wrapping the bottom portion of her New Orleans House and has about a third of her pieces wrapped now.  With  foil outlines each piece you can now see the definition and detail that you couldn't see before.  However, Lara plans to start working on a second window when she comes back because this one can wait a while while her next window can't.  What that window will be will remain a surprise that we'll reveal in out next update.

 

Susan R  has begun a new project this week and as you can see she already has all of the glass for her Beach Sandals Panel cut out and ready to be ground.  She's making short work of this and I believe this will be ground before she leaves her next class.

 

Susan D Worked on the background pieces to her Tree Of Life Window while she was in and let me tell you that there are quite a bit of those sky pieces.  They may be small but they serve a distinct purpose in making the tree look light and airy.   Now that those pieces have been aligned correctly and cut out she'll be able to begin grinding everything for a perfect fit.

  

Shelley is moving right along on her Buxom Wine Women Window and she's got probably half of it ground now.   I suspect that she'll be able to begin wrapping this by the time she return to class next week because the rest of this is fairly easy to grind.   I can't wait to see this one come together! 

 

MiMi cut out all of the individual pieces for her Crab and leaves while she was at home so even though she forgot her pattern pieces last week she's back on schedule to complete this window in record time.   This week she cut out her background glass and placed it with the rest of her pieces.   The view on the left shows just how wonderful MiMi's cutting is and the view on the right shows the same pieces with the  clear textured background cut and placed on top of everything.   It may look a little messy right now but that's only because there are so many pieces.   Her cutting is wonderful and I have no doubt that she'll have this fitting together in no time.

 

Roy made an incredible amount of progress on his Family Crest Window this week leaving him with just a border left to go and some glass to square it all off.  I'll say that at this point he's got this nipped in the bud.   It  not only looks great-- it tells a story and has purpose as well.

  

Becky S has made some MAJOR headway on her trio of Geometric Windows.   The center window is it's own design which you can see on the left.  Then there are  two matching windows on the right that will bookend the center window.   Becky is cutting all of the pieces for the duplicate pair of windows at one which means that what you see laid out on the right is actually glass stacked up in piles of two.  I always recommend cutting everything at once so you're not bouncing back and forth from the grinder to your cutter.  

 

Linda L has a second copy of her Underwater Scene pattern and she's started cutting the turtle and the porpoises on this second pattern.   Having two patterns allows her to work on two smaller boards rather than one awkward large board that can be cumbersome to transport and carry round.   Well, at least until all of these fish are joined together by the blue glass that Linda has picked out for her water.

Patrice came in and got all of the pieces to her Sunflower/Sunburst window wrapped and ready for solder.   After she left I checked over her work and I must say that she's got the art of foiling down pat already.   This window will without a doubt get its border attached when she comes back in next week.

Cindy is officially ready to move along to the text portion of her Rosie The Dog Window now that all of the missing pieces of the dog itself has been completed.  I've got to say that she's matching the picture perfectly!

 

This week we also saw Myrt get the background cut out for her Pair Of Cardinals Window.   She already had the cardinals packed away before I got the picture taken  (they've already be ground wrapped and tacked together) so you don't get the full effect of the window but you can bet that I'll give you a better view of this when we return next week.

 

Last week Rowena cut out the 14 pieces of glass that it takes to make two Kaleidoscope Airplanes and she took them home with her to grind and wrap.  This week we got to see her assemble those pieces and add the majority of the wire work to them.   She plans to work on the color wheel propellers while at home so there's a very good chance that she'll be finishing these planes upon her return.

 

And that wraps things up this week!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Get It Away From My Glass

Again, I'm running late (due to a Workshop that we had over the weekend) so we're jumping right into things by taking a look at the beautiful 'Love' Window that Mary completed this week.  She took her time soldering and did a fantastic job on it.   She may have been out of class for a while but it's all coming back to her very quickly.

 

 

Let's face it, Tracey's Address Sign is spectacular!  And it's so much bigger than people think even though I keep saying that.  At close to 6 feet wide this is once impressive stained glass window.  Tracey's workmanship just gets better and faster with each passing project (as you'll see again a little further on in this post.)

  

We also have a new Lawn Ornament to look at this week and this was made by Mary Grace.   She did the majority of the work on this while she was at home and she certainly did a wonderful job with it.

 

Speaking of Lawn Ornaments, Rowena's got another Bumblebee Lawn Ornament under her belt this week.   Those iridised wings are certainly looking good!

 

Then Terry completed another Cross which matches the one she finished last week (save for the colors.)  She can really knock out a suncatcher and once this was finished she helped her sister, Brenda, work on her window during class.

 

This week we got to see Becky begin a series of three Geometric Windows by starting on the center window.   Since this is made of all straight cuts she's begun using the pistol grip cutter and a straight edge to ensure that everything runs true.   Becky's already got most of the center cut on the first panel and the pistol grip cutter is completely under her control.

 

Beth now has all of the glass cut for her Bird Of Paradise Window and has started grinding it.   She started in the bottom left hand bottom corner because that's where the square was placed on her pattern.  She's already doing great because as you can see, this is fitting together wonderfully.

 

Now this is going to be a wild window!   I know the subject matter may be a bit odd and Carol certainly wasn't sure about starting it but with each piece she adds to this Grateful Dead Logo she likes it a little bit more.  Me, I love it!

  

Brenda brought in her Freedom Prosthetics Window that she's been working on at home and what she came in with was breath taking.   Her text is absolutely perfect because  the top and bottom of each run of text were secured by straight edges.   Her cutting and grinding is flawless on the rest of this as well!

Tracey shocked me when she got two Breast Cancer Hearts cut, ground and ready to wrap by the end of class.  I was so busy I barely saw her but she walked out the door taking these along home with her so she can come back in next week and finish them off.  Outstanding work indeed!

  

Susan D's Tree Of Life Window is a variation of a pattern that we've seen done twice before.   This one is much taller and fuller (as redrawn by Susan) and as you can see she's done some incredible glass cutting work on it in just two short weeks.   Impressive!

Jan filled in the missing piece of background after she tacked her Poppies Window together and is all set to start squaring it off.   I thought I'd share something with you about her pattern this week See, when she sent me the size I'd mistakenly drawn it taller than wider.  When she looked at the pattern she said that it would never do soooo...

 

I ended up using the same pattern but shrunk down the height of the flowers and added a few more to stretch them out horizontally so that they would be right side up when the pattern was laid on its side.  Easy peasy!

 

Next we have Roy who resumed work on his Family Crest Window and now has two out of three of the main sections all cut out.  He's just got the background of the lion section left to go before he's able to start cutting his borders so I'm just going to come right out and say that he's making great time on this project.

 

 

Shelly got  all of the glass for her Buxom Wine Ladies cut out and is all set to begin grinding this delightful window.   Even in its un-ground state you can see how cute this is going to be.

 

Lara's New Orleans House is coming together quickly for her.   The colors may have had her a bit stumped but I think that she's doing just fine and I have no doubt that this will be stunning.  The ground floor certainly is!

 

Cindy's Rosie The Dog Window has its central subject almost complete save for the eyes and one patch of fur.   Once those pieces are tacked together she can move along to  some of the lettering (preferably the curved text on top so she can then get the background cut.)

  

Linda L has the sea floor all cut out and tacked together for her Underwater Window and will next work on the upper sections.   Very soon you'll see this pattern unfold so you can  see the entire scope of this beautiful underwater scene.

 

Martha got the beveled border attached to her Lighthouse Window which leaves her with just one more border to go.  She's going to be out for a few weeks but I'm sure that she'll get that last border attached upon her return and even begin soldering it as well.

 

Mary Grace has officially finished soldering the second side of her Iris Window which means that the only thing left to do on this is to wash, color, and wax it.  That also means that this will be a completed project next week without a doubt.

 

Melissa was sure that she was going to go with a green border for her Sacred Hearts Window until she saw this mixture of red and amber glass.   I have to say that it ties everything together perfectly and I love how she was able to just let the green idea go when she saw something that worked out even better for the window.  The end is near on this one!

 

Myrt's Cardinals are now completely cut and ground so the next thing that she'll do is wrap and then tack them together so she can trace around them to complete the pattern that we drew up around this pair of Cardinals. 

 

Barbara now has her two Kaleidoscope planes all colored and awaiting their landing gear and color wheels.  She's taken her pieces for the color wheels home with her to wrap so these may very well be flying out the door when she returns next week.

Lastly we look at the glass pieces that will make two Kaleidoscope Planes for Rowena.   If you look at the picture of Barbara's Planes above and Rowena's pieces below you can sort of see how the pieces form together to make a plane.   Rowena has also taken her pieces home to wrap which means that assembling them will begin upon her return.

And once again that wraps things up here in the shop.  This is the third week of July signing out!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks