It's Fun To Strip

Christmas is always in our hearts and this week Melissa has made Christmas in February a sight to behold.  Her Gingerbread man even has 'icing' on it to form his face, buttons as well as his arm and leg decorations.  And just to clear things up that icing is actually Vitrea 160 Glass Paint.  This is one cute window that makes me hungry for gingerbread cookies!

  

At the last moment Sheri added blue borders to the left and right side of her window and I think it was a good decision.  It not only framed the window  but balanced it as well.  Her version of the Modern Tulip Window has a bit of a Frank Lloyd Wright feel to it because those blue stripes make it resemble his Tree Of Life windows.   I also like that Sheri added more color to this.  It adds a bit of punch while still retaining most of its monochromatic origins.

  

 

Let got her Sunflower Heart completed and you can clearly see the hints of pink that run throughout the background of the Sunflower.   Its subtle pink shadings made it the perfect glass to be surrounded by the pastel pink of the heart.  Again Let has made another perfectly formed heart with no straight sections or unwanted points anywhere to be found.

 

 

 

With his fourth panel completed for his Southern Belle Window Steve has placed each of them into their respective positions  in the window frame where they will eventually permanently reside.   It's certainly coming together and looking phenomenal already.  Steve will be working on the upper right panel next and we'll see that get underway when we next return.

 

 

 

 

Melissa decided to make an old fashioned Sewing Machine Window and as she was tracing it out from the pattern and onto some poster board she came up with the idea of using an over lay of  wire to be the thread. To complete the look Melissa will make the spool of thread completely out of  lead and etch thread lines into it when it's finished. I think it's going to look fantastic and can't wait to see the completed window.

   

 

Bee has moved on to the center portion of her Front Door Window and cut all of the strips required to assemble the 'centerpiece' on her strip cutter board, with her strip cutter, all by herself.   She took to the strip cutter like a fish to water and never wavered off course even once.   When all the glass was striped she then cut the proper angles on the ends of the pieces resulting in the final cluster that you see below.  Oh, and she also got everything ground as well!  You could say that she was as busy as a bee.

 

 

Everyone was in high gear this week as Let not only finished working on her Heart Suncatcher but also  completely cut out a Flower Window as well.  Just one week in and Let is ready to move on over to the grinder! 

 

 

Martha decided to cut out the blue bird in her window before she moved onto the roses and was going to make it all out of the same piece of blue until we told her to mix it up a bit with various other blues and colors .  As you can see she did just that and therefore made the bird more natural and pleasing to look at.

  

 

Ann has the round blue background to her newest Religious 3D Icon Window all ground and is ready to move on over to the wrapping phase of the construction of this window.   The symbol that will 'float' above this background will be all lead save for the glass (which you will never see) that will be encased in the lead.  More on that as it comes to fruition in the weeks to come.

 

 

 

Also this week, we see that Annette got the center building for her New Orleans Street Scene ground. She also tacked together some of her foiled pieces as well.  With the bottom portion of the left side building tacked she can feel safer while transporting it from her house to the shop and then back again each week.  If these pieces were to get mixed up it would take a VERY long time to sort things out.

 

 

 

Lara has all of her glass cut and ground save for one small piece.   She still needs to cut the 'wires' into the bridge but we won't break them up until the rest of this has been tacked together.  As you can clearly see, all of Lara's hard work is already starting to pay off even before her window has been completed.

 

 

 

 

There's LSU pride in the stripes of MiMi's Tiger Window.  Now that all of the grinding has been completed MiMi has begun foiling her pieces and in doing so she's grabbed the Tiger by the tail and  started there (thus the 'missing' pieces).

 

 

Lisa is grinding her Peeking Rooster Window Decoration and getting pretty far along on it.  I suspect that this will be completely ground next week and that she will begin grinding her spinner girl after that.  

  

 

 

Lastly we see that Jan has all of her Pelican Window tacked together and even has a brass channel on it as well.   She's begun soldering this and has taken it along home with her so that she can hopefully get some work done on it throughout the week.  You can already see that her color choice for the border was spot on to say the least.

 

 

 

And there you have it.  Mardi Gras and Valentines Day took their toll this week as we had a somewhat low student turn out.   That doesn't mean that little was accomplished though as you can easily tell by the work that we've showcased in this post.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks