Sugar, Honey, Iced Tea

Barbara wanted a Magnolia pattern but rather that the same Magnolia patterns that we've seen done over and over she wanted something new that was tall rather than wide.   This is the pattern we came up with and I think she's done a fantastic job on it. 

 

 

Kerry's Swedish Chef is actually a call out to the Muppet Show and his window (based on a meme) is the perfect likeness of him.  I have been woefully ignorant of this guy (I knew of him but only saw 1 or two episodes that featured him) but I have rectified that predicament thanks to you tube.  All I can say is "Bork, bork, bork!"

Let loved the Cardinal Cross that she saw Cindy make (from a pattern drawn by Terry) and decided that she had to make one of her own.  The end result is impeccable and her use of bevels as accent pieces as well as her attention to detail set this off wonderfully.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Cindy has been busy prepping for a show she'll be selling at next week.  During class this week she was able to finish a pair of Christmas Bells, another Holly Heart,  a large Candy Cane, a 3D Butterfly, and a pair of Business Card Holders.   Here's hoping she sells all of this as well as the many other items that she's taking with her!

 

  

 

 

 

Could it really be Christmas without seeing Grinches being made in one form or another?   Judy completed her full sized window with just moments to spare before she headed home with this colorful and easily recognizable window under her arm.   Her handmade window is proof that, “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

 

 

 

 

Annette is another person who has been more than busy trying to get a large number of items done quickly.  These are the last three of her twenty(!) Christmas Ornament which each feature a Bible verse paired with different bows.  the most impressive thing is that she completed all 20 within two scant weeks!

 

 

 

 

 

Bee's Dandelion Tribute Window features many focal points with everything that you see inside of it having  meaning.  When this is done I will tell you all about them but until then let us just sit back and watch how Bee brings this all together almost effortlessly.

 

 

 

Betty is making a Christmas Ornament of her own which features a name rather than a bible verse.   She's also got a Nativity scene suncatcher under way and I'm suspecting that these will very well be completed when we see Betty again next week.

 

 

 

With each passing week Cheryl's Harley Davidson Window becomes more and more legible.  With only a few pieces of black background left to go in the main 'title line' Cheryl will soon be able to move along to the 'MOTOR' section or the 'CYCLES' section.

 

 

 

Kandise got all of the pieces ground for her left side of her pair of Corner Accent Pieces and then moved along to foiling what she ground.  She's made excellent time with her foiling and I must say that the evenness of her work is top notch!  There's no doubt at all that she'll begin soldering this when she comes back in.

 

 

 

Lara's Books and Flowers are really showing their stuff this week.   The red lines on the pattern  denote pages that will actually be formed from wire work on top of glass.   To make things easier Lara is wrapping all of the pieces that she has already cut out in foil and then she'll tack them together so that nothing will shift as she works on the larger 'paper' pieces.

 

 

 

Let began this Flowing Geometric Panel while in class and even managed to get it all cut out.  She's a big fan of grinding things while she's at home and I know that she's anxious to see this completed so who knows how this will look when she walks in the door with next week!

 

 

 

Next up we have another Grinch and this one, along with a Beveled Celtic Heart, is being made by Linda F.   The heart is all ground and only waiting to be foiled now while the Grinch still needs a little bit of grinding before she can foil it.   The interesting thing is that her Grinch looks as though it's already been ground -- but it only looks that way because Linda cuts patiently and precisely.   That means that she will spend far less time at the grinder!

 

 

 

Lisa is working on a pair of Teddy Bear Moons that are absolutely adorable.   A large yellow star will hang from the top point of each moon suspended by a chain above each bear giving it that little extra 'nudge' from cute to adorable.  They already look great so I can't wait to see what these will look like once they are completed.

 

 

 

With the sixth of her Address Windows ready to be soldered Lorrie is making excellent progress.   Her deadline is still weeks away which means that she has far more time than she actually needs to complete both this and the last window that will finish off her set of seven windows.   She also got a background cut out for her Wedding Box and will likely get the top finished shortly.

 

 

 

Mary Grace is working on a Mardi Gras Mask and from the looks of things she'll be tacking this together when she returns.  All this needs now is a slight amount of tweaking and then she'll be able to foil the five pieces that make this up.    I don't know whether this will be a suncatcher or the subject matter of a window but we will know the answer to that question upon her arrival upon her return.

 

 

 

She is the Egg Man!  She is the Walrus!  She is MiMi and she's got another color of glass almost all cut out which means that she'll be moving along to a new color upon her arrival next week.  the egg cartons are filling up quickly now!

 

 

 

 

Here we have another Window Corner Grinch in the works with this one is being made by Sheri.  She has it all ground which means that that he's ready for some foil.  Since she took this along home with her I'm betting dollars to donuts that this will be wrapped and tacked together when she comes back in.

 

 

 

Susan D has both of her Bird Suncatchers foiled and ready for solder.  I would say that these will be headed out the door for the last time when Susan comes back into class because the soldering process on these will certainly go quickly.

 

 

 

After this week Susan R has only two feathers left to go!   The end of this project is  approaching ever nearer  and before you know it this Peacock is going to be soldered and tacked into its hoop.   Susan wanted a show stopper and this is certainly going to fit the bill. 

 

 

 

And to wrap things up here we are looking at the Elephant of Many Colors that June is about to begin making.   This week she traced the pattern onto poster board which she will then cut into the individual pattern pieces which in turn will be traced onto the various colors that she'll use.

 

  

 

And that, is as they say, is that.  Happy Turkey Day Everyone.  Gobble Gobble! 

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

It's Later Than You Think And Time is Not Your Friend

Annette's Sacred Heart Window was a labor of love and the end result is breathtaking.   She took her time with this and never settled on 'good enough'.  When things got overwhelming she would walk away and take a break  rather than stress through it which is exactly why this looks as great as is does.  Nice work!

 

Linda began this spooky Halloween Window just a little too late to get it finished in time for Halloween this year but she's all set for next year now that this has been completed and taken home with her.  She says that she's even going to hang it up for a little while before storing it away for next years Halloween.  

 

 

 

Let really knocked it out of the ball park with her Fishbowl Window.  Her attention to detail (the perfectly round fishbowl), her color choices, and even her soldering make this a window that could draw cats in from the streets! What's not to love about this?

 

 

 

A picture doesn't do Melissa's Kaleidoscope justice at all.   From the start she wanted this to bring Northern Lights to mind so she picked a Blue/Aqua/Purple Iridised glass for the side panels that has to be seen to be believed.  When light reflects off of it the resemblance to Northern Lights is uncanny.  As an added accent Melissa cut the profiles of four Evergreen Trees out of sheet foil and then covered them them with solder and added scratches into the lead to make the trees look more realistic.   She attached two per side near the color wheels and again, the photo just doesn't do this justice.  It truly has to be seen in person to be believed.

 

 

 

 

Steve made this lovely pair of Cardinals which he accented with some wire work to give it the shape of a heart.  Everything but the wire work was completed last week and he finished this very quickly while in class this week and then moved along to his next design.

 

 

As we suspected, Cindy's Cat Window certainly looks wonderful even though it doesn't sport a border.   She tried many different color combinations but we just couldn't agree on what it needed.  Normally you need a border to frame things but the curtains do that all on their own in this case.   Of course the final reason we like to add a border is to give us a place to attach hooks to and again, the curtains came through and provided us nearly equal spacing for hooks on both sides of this stunning window.

 

 

 

I forgot to post this last week but here we are better late than never with Steve's rendition of Mother Mary with Baby Jesus.  You'll note that there isn't a border on this either and that's because Steve didn't want the distraction of a border on a piece that wasn't going to be hung in a window but rather displayed as a table piece on a stand.

 

 

 

Mary Grace put the finishing solder bead on both sides of her Mardi Gras Mask window and ended up walking out the door with this eye catching window that's rich with color.  The pure black border helps to  accentuate the mask's bold colors by framing it without competing with it.  

 

 

 

When Lisa's circular Fox was tacked together we realized that we had to make a slight change to the pattern.  The original design had the background cut into numerous pieces that Lisa found distracting.   By removing the superfluous lines Lisa's Fox became the driving force of the window.  However, when we went to add hooks to it we realized that without a border there was no safe  place to attach the hook on the right side where it wouldn't just pull free in time.  Our solution?  A simple thin border was added which provided a place to attach a hook yet still be thin enough to allow the fox's ear to poke out from with his frame as Lisa very much wanted.

June wrapped up the work on her Goat Window and we all agreed that his pure blue eyes are the color that makes this window stand out.   I don't know if real goats have blue eyes or not but after seeing this I have to say that I sure hope they do!

 

 

 

Cindy was certainly busy as can be this week as she was able to complete a Grinch Hand, a Cross, a small Cross Pendant suncatcher, as well as a Geometric Suncatcher made from assorted clear textures.   She nearly completed a pair of Christmas Bells as well which we will surely see when she returns next week.

 

 

 

By now you know that when you see a completed Address Window it will most likely have been made by Lorrie.   This is her fifth in a series of seven Windows which means that  she only has two more left to go!  You've got to love how she manages to match the border to the colors she uses in the numbers without actually repeating the same color.

 

Our last completed project reveals that Betty finished the remainder of her Grinch Hand Suncatchers.   There were four altogether and they all matched each other perfectly (as they should).  I'll bet that Betty can make these with her eyes closed by now.

 

Betty has wanted to make this Modern Nativity Scene for some time now but other stained glass obligations (Grinch Hands, etc) managed to come before it.   Now that she's all caught up she's turned her focus to this inspiring mid sized suncatcher.   Wrapping it in 1/4 foil will give it thicker lead lines to give it an old fashioned stained glass look which is exactly what drew her to this pattern in the first place

 

 

 

Once her Fish Bowl Window completed Let moved on over to the grinder where she began grinding the pieces that she had already cut out for a Cardinal Cross Suncatcher.  With this already being almost completely ground I believe it won't be long before Let needs another pattern to make!

 

  

 

 

Now that Kandise has cut all of the pieces of glass for her pair of Corner Accents she's spent her night working on the grinder to get everything fitting together nicely.  She's moving along at a nice steady pace here and I think she'll be ready to start foiling her first corner piece after her next class.  

 

 

 

 

Sheri's got all of her Koi Fish cut out and is also working at the grinder.  There's a lot to grind here so Sheri will be working on this at home as well as in the shop.  When you're working on a window this size it certainly goes quicker if you can work on things between classes. 

 

  

 

Kerry Soldered his Swedish Chef window this week and even got the back side of it finished.  With just soldering touch ups remaining I'd say that this will be among our completed windows in our next post.  And that's a fact!

 

 

 

Lara is grinding away at one of her Stack of Books with Flowers and had to sort through the pieces that she'd already cut and stored in zip lock bags to put this one 'together'.  She's left this pinned into place on top of her grinding board because once you begin grinding it's best not to remove the pins that hold things together.   For some unexplained reason they never quite go back together again once they've been shuffled about.

 

 

 

The end is drawing near for Susan R's Peacock in a Hoop.  There are numerous tail feathers left to go but she's taking her time and making sure that nothing gets mixed up or put out of place because when it comes to tiny pieces, that could be disastrous.  And this is anything but disastrous!

  

 

 

With all of her background pieces cut, ground and tacked together Barbara was able to concentrate on her double borders.   She cut the first thinner border out of a heavily textured clear glass to help separate the background from the final border which will be cut from the same baroque glass that her background was cut from.   It may be hard to see but both borders have been cut and she only needs to wrap and tack the final border to her Magnolia Window before she can begin soldering this on both the front and the back sides.

  

 

This may look familiar but rest assured that Martha's version of a Cat In A Window is different from Cindy's.  In fact, the only thing similar (beyond the theme) are the curtains which were cut from the same sheet of glass that Cindy used.  Martha's Cat may not be as colorful as the one Cindy made but Martha added a plant to her window to make sure that the piece count remained about the same.

 

 

In the weeks to come, when we see Egg Cartons we will surely think of MiMi.   She's almost got all of her second color (light green) cut out and is now using a total of six 18 count egg cartons to contain all of the pieces that she's cut out so far.  There will be more though-- far many more in fact!

 

 

 

Judy just needs to wrap her border pieces and then she'll be able to begin soldering  her Grinch.   Before she cut the border pieces she finished wrapping the bottom pieces of the his face and now you can clearly see that we are dealing with someone whose brain is full of spiders and has garlic in his soul!

 

  

 

Susan D's officially got all of her Eagle Suncatcher ground which means that it is ready for foil.   Her Crow in the upper left corner has already been foiled so that should be completed upon her return.  There are a lot of feathers in the Eagle though so that won't be ready to solder for another week or so.

 

 

 

With all of the missing pieces (save for Joseph's hand and two or three tiny background pieces) cut and ground Ann is just about ready to get her border cut out.  Before that happens she'll have to square off those two upper corners by adding triangular corner pieces.  It's a very simple process with the hardest part being deciding on what color to make them!

 

  

 

And to finish things off we take a look at Lorrie's sixth Address Window which has been all cut out and is currently being ground.  But surprise, surprise!  Look closely and you'll see that she also has the flower for her newest Invitation box all tacked together and awaiting its background glass to be cut out.

  

 

 

And there you have it.  One EXTREMELY productive week!

 

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

But I Always Feel Creative...

Annette has decided to make about 20 Christmas Ornament Suncatchers in three different styles.  Each has a Bible Scripture (Psalm 139 23-24) that has been permanently fired onto the glass.  These are her first four and  I have to say that her idea to add bows to each ornament was a stroke of genius.  

 

 

 

Lisa's Cool Mountains Circular Suncatcher features iridescent stars and a dark, dark purple sky.  The black patina helps hide the lead lines in the finished piece which actually makes the stars appear to hang in the air.

 

 

Betty got six of her Grinch Hands with Ornaments completed this week and still has a few more to finish off.  We'll probably be seeing a lot of these now that Christmas is less than seven weeks away!

Although Lorrie is making seven Address Windows it isn't as easy as cutting out the same pieces seven times since all of the street numbers are different.   That means that there's more work to these than you would normally expect but she's still making these at a super fast rate of two per week.   Here are numbers 702 and 227!

Steve got his male and female Cardinals finished before class ended but was unable to get to the wire work that surrounds these two love birds into a heart.  I guess we know what Steve will be doing when he comes back into class.

 

 

 

Kandise has almost all of  her Window Corner Accents cut out and ready to be ground.   Since the pair are mirror images she was able to simply cut double the amount of pieces of glass since they are mostly symmetrical and can be flipped in either direction.   The only minor problems are the two pieces on the left of the pattern which need to be cut out independently since they can't be reversed.   I have found that mirror images can really mess with your head, but Kandise is certainly on the right track here.

 

  

 

 

Kerry is back!   We haven't seen his Swedish Chef in a while now but  here he is with all of his glass cut and attached.  Since this sat so long he had to take some time to re-melt all of the lead so that a smooth solder bead could be applied on top of the old lead.   There's nothing worse than trying to solder on top of old solder.   By melting all of the old lead Kerry now has a nice clean 'palette' to solder on.

 

  

 

Melissa's Kaleidoscope has been assembled and she's decided to use Scalloped Foil on this project. I was unsure on how easily since this is a 3D project but it soldered beautifully-- perhaps even easier than plain foil! Next week she'll add the legs and an axle to support the color wheels as well as some silhouettes of trees to give this Kaleidoscope a Northern Lights theme. Also in the picture below is a quick look through the mirrors that will go inside of this kaleidoscope.

 

 

 

With her borders cut for her Spooky Halloween Tree Window Linda will begin soldering this before you know it.  She plans on hanging this up as soon as it is finished and says that she just doesn't care if Halloween 2024 is already behind us-- she's going to enjoy all the work she put into this now!

 

  

 

Here's the next number in Lorrie's address windows as well as a look at the flower that will go in the next Wedding Invitation Box that she began this week. At this rate EVERYONE will be inviting her to weddings just to get a box!

 

  

 

 

Martha's Cat Window is nearly complete needing only a few pieces of the Cat left to be cut.  She'll easily handle that next week and possibly begin wrapping this as well.  It won't be long now.

 

 

 

Lisa's Fox got its background cut out and everything has been tacked together.   The original design calls for a hook to be mounted on the right of the circle but that's honestly going to break off  eventually.  What Lisa will do to prevent this is to tack a wire around the outside edge of the circle that will distribute the weight that the hook has to bear around most of the perimeter.  There's always a solution.

 

  

 

With everything tacked together Barbara was able piece together a background using baroque glass. The person she is making this for also wanted a baroque border but since it always looks odd to match the border to the background Barbara has decided to go with a double border using a thin inner border of a different glass to help offset the return to baroque for the last border.

 

  

 

Jan finished grinding her her Sunburst window but one of the pieces just came up a little too short to use.   She's going to tack this together and then replace the piece by tracing along the opening for a perfect cut and grind on the first pass.  Also, she has yet to decide on a color for one of the smallest pieces in this so that will be handled upon her return as well.

 

  

 

 

Let's Fishbowl Window is almost completed now that she has a border attached to it.  She also added a brass channel as well and then finished soldering the front side.  I have no doubt that the back will have been soldered when she brings this back in because Let does NOT remain still!

 

 

 

Cheryl is back in action and she's wrapping the pieces that she cut for her Harley Davidson Window.  This will allow her to tack together what she's cut and prevent any of the pieces from sliding around or getting lost.    It will also show us in a very clear manner exactly what still needs to be cut and what has already been done.   Organization is paramount to building a window of this complexity.

  

 

 

Ann has a few fill in pieces left to go for her Nativity Scene and she's added a Halo that was missing from Joseph's Head to the pattern as well.  Before she cuts those missing pieces she's going to tack together what she has cut and ground and then make new patterns for the remaining pieces.   

 

 

Here we see that there are more egg cartons under MiMi's belt which means that she's consistently cutting out pieces three at a time.  She has all of 'color number 2' traced out onto glass and about a third of it cut out already.  This Louis XV  Lamp is going to turn heads for sure.

 

  

 

 

Judy resumed work on her Grinch Window and after she finished grinding the few pieces that were left over from last week she began foiling her green meany!  It still looks like he doesn't have a mouth but he certainly does and it will be VERY apparent when you see this again next week. 

 

 

 

Cindy's version of her Cat window is so very close to completion.   All it needs is some solder on the back side and then it will be ready to hang.  In the end we decided to forgo  a border.  The curtains gave us a place to hang the window from after it got a channel attached.  Martha will do the same with hers.   Also in the picture is the start of Cindy's next Holly Heart. 

 

 

 

And we're wrapping things up here by looking at the next three Grinch Hands that Betty will indubitably complete upon her return.

 

 

So long, and thanks for all the shrimp!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks