We Don't Want It To Be All Wonky

Cindy's first Personalized Sports Window was completed this week and those letters are going nowhere! She painted them onto the glass with enamel glass paint which was then fired in our kiln to literally melt the enamel onto the white glass underneath it. Once everything was finished and she had colored and waxed her window Cindy used red nail polish and an artist's fine paint brush to make the ball look as though it had red stitching on it. I'm calling this a home run for sure.

 

Linda L made a beveled Cross Window out of all clear glass textures and then decided to leave the solder silver since it went so well with all of the clear glass that she used. It was a perfect choice for a perfect widow!

 

 

We have a new student this week and that means we get to look at a butterfly! Keri picked green wings with a brown body and I believe that it's clearly evident that she had no problem at all making a perfect Butterfly!

Mary Grace has another Frame under her belt and it's a twin of the first one that she made. I'm not entirely sure how many more of these she plans to make but she also got a lot of green, gold and purple strips cut out so that she can piece together at least two or three more of these frames.  

 

With the first third of her Lamp all wrapped in foil MiMi has coated her lamp mold with Tacky-Wax and then positioned all of the pieces into place. Even already, this looks amazing. When she comes back in she'll tack this together and then be ready to work on the second third of her lamp.

  

Martha believes I hate her because her pattern has so many tiny pieces in it. Well I'm not going to lie and say that it doesn't but more detail always means more pieces. I'll state one other thing for the record on this-- it's going to be spectacular!

  

 

Paula has begun working on a Happy Sunny Sky featuring a rainbow, cotton candy clouds and a hint of the moon in it as well! This is actually going to be the top of a box which means that she will completely finish this 100 percent before she begins working on the pieces that make the box bottom. 

 

 

 

June's Multi-Colored Cat is shaping up wonderfully and I really do think that this is easily going to outdo the multi-colored elephant that she made just a month ago. Her colors are nice and vibrant and she's grinding as she goes which means that although it may appear that she's working slowly, she's actually getting two steps done at once.

  

 

 

Lorrie got the entire front side of her Dragonfly Window soldered and then moved on over the the back side where she got about a third of that soldered as well. Consider this to be a done deal when she comes back in!

 

  

 

  

Look at all of those beautiful flowers!   Melissa is now wrapping glass and once these flowers are foiled she'll tack them together and then begin the arduous task of filling in the background.   She'll do that by placing chunks of the background glass under the birds and then tracing around them.  Once she has everything that she traced cut, ground and wrapped she'll tack them into  position and begin the process again until the entire background has been filled in.

 

  

 

With all of her Luna Moth ground Zoe has started to foil all of her pieces.  She's going to tack this together before working on the background so that the pieces of the moth won't shift around while lining up the background.  We want everything to be perfectly straight and symmetrical or this window will certainly lose a large amount of it's charm.

  

 

 

Susan D's has a lot of humming birds in the works here and they are actually  part of one large window. She's moving full steam ahead and once these are tacked together she'll move along to the flowers that will share the spotlight with these birds.

 

  

 

 

With the second side of her Flowers and Books almost completely soldered Lara will surely get the wire work completed on this when she comes back in.  You can already see one piece of long wire in the picture that she's pre-tinned so that she can cut it to the correct lengths and then solder them into position to form pages and flower details. 

 

 

 

Bee's LSU/Tiger Eyes have really come together. The LSU portion has been wrapped in copper foil and can now be tacked. Once she foils the top tiger section she'll be ready to get a border on this!

 

  

 

Sheri has her Koi Window tacked together which means that we will be working on filling in those pesky missing pieces upon her return.   With the pieces secure we will be able to put glass under this and trace around the openings to get a nice clean, perfect fit.

  

 

This is Cindy's second Sports Ball 'Window' but this one will actually have no background glass and hang as a large sun catcher. The blue glass that she used to fire the name Luke into wasn't fusing glass so the texture and the shade of the blue changed after being fired which was problematic to Cindy since there are four other pieces of blue that make up the ribbon. To fix that we are going to fire some more blue glass and then re-cut the left and right sides of the banner which will ensure that all of the pieces match perfectly.

 

  

 

Cheryl got all of her background glass cut out for her LARGE Beveled Window and even has the borders cut for the top and bottom of it. I suspect that those will be tacked into place along with the left and right borders when we next see this.  Soldering is very near now.

 

 

 

Here's a look at Mary Grace's third Picture frame which is identical to the first two. That means that the twin picture frames that she's already made will soon become triplets!

 

  

 

 

Kandise has traced out everything for her Flowers and Numbers Address Window and will be making this in two distinct sections.  She'll start with the flowers which reside on the right side of the pattern and treat that side as though it were one complete window   That means that she'll actually tack all of what you see below together before moving along the the left side of the window which contains the numbers.  This will go together the same way that Bee's LSU/Tiger Eyes window did but this window runs left and right rather than Bee's top and bottom.

 

  

  

Ann has extended the fractured background of her new window to fit the larger circle that she will build it within and then we sat down and figured out just how big the Dove should be that will reside in the center of this window.  Yep, Ann will be cutting glass when we next see her!

And there you have it!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

I Said a Little, That's a Lot!

Martha's colorful Musical Notes Window was completed this week and it looks spectacular. Colorful and musical all at once. If you play the notes you'll find that this is the beginning of 'Come Together' by The Beatles. (Or is it??) No matter, Martha did a wonderful job all around on this and I think it will sing to everyone that sees it. 

 

Paula's Butterfly was done in record time which is impressive when you consider the amount of pieces in it.   It took her far less than three weeks (more like two weeks) to make this stunning iridized Butterfly.   The quick turnaround from start to finish does not in any way suggest that the workmanship on this is lacking.  It's as perfect as perfect can be right down from the colors up to her impressive soldering.

Zoe's Luna Moth has been all cut out and she's begun grinding the pieces already. She'll put the moth together as though it were a suncatcher so that it doesn't shift around when she begins working on the background and its fancy border which needs to line up perfectly for this to look its very best.

 

 

 

Linda L has a number of these cross bevel sets and has decided that it's time to put them to good use.   In this class she learned how to design a simple yet stylish Cross Panel and then got everything cut, ground, wrapped and tacked together.   Now that's what I call an extremely  productive day!  

 

  

 

 

Linda F got all of her Butterfly Window ground but I sort of threw off one of her pieces by trying to help but instead made things worse.  Rather than re-cutting the large piece of glass that I ground too short we altered the smaller piece in the upper left corner so that everything fit together perfectly.   If you look closely you can see how the glass doesn't follow the pattern underneath it.  After getting the left side together we then altered 2 pieces on the right side so that the Butterfly would be symmetrical again.   Sometimes the best way to handle a situation is to look for a less obvious  solution which in this case was to alter and re-cut a much smaller piece. 

 

  

 

Judy began this Chippewa Indian Woman Suncatcher and also got very far along on it in just one class.  It's looking like this will be completely ground when you see it again in our next post. 

 

  

 

 

Annette began foiling the pieces that she had ground for her LSU Window and even tacked them together. This ensures that nothing will slip out of place and will make grinding the remaining pieces go a bit easier since there won't be as many pins holding things down. All I can say is that this may be THE biggest feather in Annette's stained glass hat when she's finished with it because it is already stunning.

 

Not to be outdone by any of our other students, Lorrie set to work on a Dragonfly Lotus Window by tracing out her pattern onto poster board, cutting the pattern pieces out, and then even cutting this much glass as well! Don't you dare sneeze or you might miss out on her finishing this beauty of a window! 

 

 

 

As predicted, Bee finished cutting and grinding the bottom portion of her LSU Window in the blink of an eye. She's going to be wrapping pieces when she comes back in but even now, without foil revealing where the lead lines will be, you can clearly see the tiger as well as the LSU in this window. Team spirit indeed.

 

  

 

 

Shelley's Cats are beginning to look like squared off cats now (as they should).  Maybe it's the addition of the blue collars but rest assured that they will look even more catlike when you next see them because they will have their little pink noses cut and ground into place. 

 

  

 

Let's Flower Window got it's border cut, ground, foiled and attached this week. It's hard to say if this will be completed when she brings it back in because Let will be out next week due to a well deserved vacation.   Alas, the end is near for this beautiful window.

 

 

  

Cindy's closing in on scoring with two different Sports Window projects.   The nameplate for her Soccer Ball has been fired and is ready to be added to the bottom of that piece while her Softball Window only needs the border foiled and then some soldering done to it.  Since Cindy works on her stained glass while at home I won't be surprised if she has at least one of these completed when she comes back in. 

 

 

 

 

Cheryl's Beveled Window is really coming together as the largest of her pieces have been cut, ground, foiled and tacked together.   She's got only eight pieces left to go before she can add the final border and those eight pieces may very well be attached by the end of her next class.

 

 

 

Mary Grace has another frame under way and only needs to solder this and then add the three piece stand that will enable this to be displayed on a table rather than hanging on the wall. 

  

 

And just like that, the Blog was published later than normal!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

Susan 006

Lorrie's Multi-colored Elephants have been completed and are they sensational or what?  Now that there's some light behind this window the gray elephants contrast beautifully against the stark white background.  All of the colors in the flowers balance with the border to create a one of a kind window that proudly shows off Lorrie's glass making skills.

 

 

 

Susan R put the finishing touches on her Geometric Flower Design this week and tuned it into a Flowerpot Ornament by putting it onto a small stake rather than putting a hook on it. It's light, it's colorful and she already knows what flowerpot this will decorate when she gets it home.

  

Judy's Hummingbird Window is breezy affair which features an iridized hummingbird along with some red flowers set within a vibrant sky.  That said it's the border which is the pièce de résistance of this windows as it pulls in both blue and green to make Judy's Window even more stunning.

  

 

Ann finished foiling and soldering her pair of Chicken Corner Suncatchers which brings her flock to a count of three. They're adorable and have caught the eye of at least one other student who says that she'll be making one or two of these in the near future as well and we all know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

 

  

 

Let loves to come into class with something that she essentially completed at home and this week was no exception. Her Bevel in a Heart is an all clear affair mixing various textures along with a touch of iridized glass to create this loving suncatcher.

 

 

 

Paula began a beautifully detailed Butterfly and even in her first week of cutting things are fitting together beautifully.    She's using iridised glass throughout this which will add even more to its WOW factor.

 

 

 

Lorrie also began work on a Peacock Window.  The pattern that she is building it on is colored so it can be difficult to tell exactly what has been cut and what is just pattern so I did my best to get a reflection from the light above it to show what the actual glass pieces are. 

 

  

 

 

MiMi is pinning her lamp together one piece at a time on her pattern.    She won't actually attach the pieces to the mold until they are wrapped and then they will be held into place with wax.   Once that's done she's immediately tack things with solder and then remove the first third of the lamp so she can start the process over two more times.

 

 

MiMi posted this on facebook which means that she's not wasting any time-- she's been foiling glass at home. 

Bee's LSU has more than taken shape now that her LSU letters and their background have been cut out. Consisting of only 17 pieces this section of her window has proven to advance at a MUCH quicker pace than the upper highly detailed Tiger Face portion of it. The two go together perfectly and will end up making one stunning window very soon now.

 

 

 

June was busy cutting and grinding glass for her Multi-colored Cat Window.   With each upcoming week we will more and more see this colorful feline come to life.

 

  

 

Shelley has completed one cat project only to begin another.  This time around the cats are a more of an artistic affair as this trio of felines are made almost entirely of straight lines.   She's only got five more pieces to cut after which she'll begin grinding and I don't think that will take very long at all.

  

 

 

Cindy's Softball Window is coming together like a fast ball. This week she got her background cut as well as the border and then she even got the background glass ground and tacked into place! There's no doubt to me that this will be completed upon her return.

 

   

Let also worked on her Lilly Window and has all of the flowers and leaves cut out. The flowers are ground but the leaves have only been cut at this point in time. Let plans on grinding the leaves and then foiling and tacking together all of those pieces before cutting and grinding the glass for her background.

 

 

 

Melissa's Tiffany Styled Birds Window gets more and more detailed with each passing week.   She's taken this home with her and after this picture had been taken she's informed me that all of the flowers have now officially been cut out of glass.

 

 

 

 

With half of the background cut, ground, wrapped and tacked into position on her clear Beveled Window Cheryl is making progress at a nice rate of speed. She's also got the second side traced out and will cut and grind that when she comes back in. It may be large three foot by three foot window but it's quick work because beveled windows are usually made out of as few glass pieces as possible so that the bevels are the main focus of the window. 

 

 

 

Lara has everything cut and tacked into position for her newest Flowers and Books Suncatcher.   When she returns it will be soldered and the wire work, which brings this piece to life, will begin and most likely end.

 

 

 

Cindy also got a pattern made for her next Sports project which will be a large Soccer Ball Suncatcher complete with the name LUKE in a banner underneath it.

 

 

 

 

Mary Grace began a second Picture Frame and got the clear glass and the first border cut, ground and wrapped in copper foil.  It will only take a few minutes for her to tack this together next week and once that's completed she can cut the final four clear pieces that make up the last border.   Mary Grace could be soldering this as soon as next week.

  

 

 

Cheryl also worked on a new Cross Panel and with everything all cut I'm thinking that this will be ready for hanging when she comes back in because Cheryl is someone who works on her projects not only while in class but at home as well.

 

 

 

 

Susan D has designed a somewhat large window filled with humming birds and flowers that she'll make by tacking together everything but the background glass.   Once the flowers and birds are tacked she'll simply place them atop her background glass, trace around them, and then carefully separate the background into its respective pieces which will fit together perfectly since it's all been cut continuously from one sheet of glass.  Alas, all we have to look at this week are some of the pattern pieces that she's cut out with scissors.  That will change the next time we see this though.

 

Stay rad,

 

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks