I Love My Aggressive Grinder

June finished her Technicolor Elephant and the border both frames and sets off the Elephant beautifully.   Her grinding was spot on and you can clearly see all of the well defined lines that give this elephant all of its character.   I seem to be sensing a theme here because I know that her next project will be of a similar nature!

 

 

 

 

Linda F wrapped up the work on her Bird Of Paradise Window and it's another top notch piece of work that shows off her attention to detail and her ability to master her craft. Check out how the large green leaf behind the flower lines up all the way through. THAT is attention to detail that many people miss.  Unless, of course, you're Linda!

 

Here we have Betty's stunning Curving Geometric window. The think most unique about this is that she didn't chose to hang it as a square window but rather as a diamond. The design itself is certainly eye catching but them combined with the unique way that it is displayed, well, it's just all the better!

 

 

But Betty didn't stop there with her Geometric Window-- She also made these two Cross Suncatchers that she designed herself. She wanted a quick and simple pattern but quickly learned about hinge points and how a simple glass bead in the center (cut in at an angle) alleviates one of the biggest problems in stained glass: The dreaded hinge point!

 

 

 

 

Paula finished her 3D suncatcher repair. Most times I don't post repair pictures but in all honesty this was more of a remake rather than a repair due to all of the damage this had sustained from its accident. There are considerably more new pieces in this than original pieces and yet it lives again thanks to Paula and it look better than ever.

 

 

 

Cheryl made this rustic Cross while at home and it certainly captures and antique feel with its many colors.

 

 

 

 

This week Annette has let us see just how far along she's gotten on her LSU Tiger Window. She didn't just want the standard logo windows because she wanted something completely unique and new. She's got the majority of this cut out already and let me be the first to say that even in its incomplete state this is an extremely impressive window!

 

 

 

Linda F also began a Butterfly Panel this week and she already has it all cut and ground. She'll be working at the grinder when she comes back in and I don't believe that it will take long for her to whip this into perfect shape.

 

 

Cheryl is about to embark on a large three foot by three foot beveled window and this is the cluster that will reside in the center of it.   It will also feature two diamond bevels to help fill in some of the blank areas on the top and bottom of the window.  We'll see how that works out as this progresses.

 

 

Susan R got her Geometric Suncatcher all ground and wrapped in foil as well. She has a few minutes time left on class but decided not to tack this together since she isn't working on this while at home. Leaving flux on copper foil makes things go slower when trying to solder and since this is a small project it's best to just tack it together next week and then finish soldering it all in one shot.

  

 

Cindy ended up re-cutting her Baseball window into a smaller size and changing the color of the ball to the lime green color to match the baseballs that Janelle uses when she plays ball. This window will be personalized not only by the name (Janelle) that will be fired onto the banner but by the unique color of the baseball as well!

 

 

 

Ann has her second Peeping Chicken Suncatcher all cut and ground and she's even traced out and cut all of the pieces for her third chicken. She's Ann on fire!

 

  

 

 

Let always has two irons in the fire and this week that fire was burning under a cute Puppy Dog Panel as well as her Mardi Gras Mask Panel. She's toying with the idea of adding googly eyes on the dogs when they are completed and I guess we'll see what she decides to do when she comes back in next week and these are completed.

 

 

 

Martha's Musical Notes Window is all ground and her musical staff lines up perfectly thus creating a nice smooth flowing roll of notes.   She's taken this home with her to hopefully wrap so that she can tack this together and begin soldering upon her return. 

 

 

 

Mary Grace got her Frame all soldered and even got the brass channel that holds the picture attached to the back of the frame.   Next she'll cut three pieces of clear glass to form the legs and the support strut that will enable the frame to sit on a tabletop securely. The end is near, for this first of five stained glass Frames that Mary Grace will be making.

 

 

 

 

Bee's LSU Window got its Tiger Face all cut and ground. She still has to cut openings for the eyeballs but again we won't do that until everything is wrapped so she can take any shifting into account and adjust from there. This looks great and Bee is bringing her amazing level of craftsmanship straight to the work table on this. The rest of this window will be a piece of cake when compared to the Tiger Face portion of it.  

 

  

 

 

Judy got the pieces for her sky ground, wrapped and then tacked into position. Once that was done she was able to lift the window and place it on top of the piece of blue that was unused last week. After that she traced them out, cut them, and filled the remaining pieces for a complete background/sky . She even even managed to picked out and cut her border pieces which means that she'll easily be soldering this when she returns.

 

 

 

Kandise has the front of her Birds on a Wire soldered and even got the wire support all bent and attached to the back side which will prevent this form sagging in the middle of the project when hanging. The beauty of it is that since it follows various lead lines all the way across you won't even know the support is there! There's even a chance that this will be completed upon her return.

 

 

 

 

MiMi's precision grinding is on full display here. All of her pieces fit within the lines on her pattern which means that this lamp will go together effortlessly when she begins tacking this together one section at a time. And that's exactly what we want because having to regrind and re-wrap lamp pieces during the assembling process leads to huge problems since the wax that holds the pieces to the mold will only hold them in place for so long.

 

 

Lorrie's 'Sugar' Elephants are almost completely foiled now which means that she'll be tacking this together possibly as soon as next week. She spent a little time at the end of her class deciding what color she would use for a border and in the end a somewhat unlikely choice in the glass rack turned out to be the perfect choice when placed next to her window. Sometimes you need some context to help make the right decision.

Sheri's Coy Fish are swimming along and getting every closer to the tacking stage now that her wrapping is just about over with.   She's going to use a mixture of bevels and clear textured glass for a single border on this and she's already got the design for that together in her head.

What impressive students we have!  Color me impressed!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

It Certainly Glows It Up

It's been eleven months in the making and this week we get to see Cheryl's completed Harley-Davidson Window.  That may sound like a long time but there were many, many missed weeks during those months.  Also, this isn't a beginners window by any means.  There are plenty of tiny pieces and the letters needed to be perfect for it to be legible.   Flowers can deviate from the pattern here and there but letters not so much.  Congratulations Cheryl on following through!

 

 

Ann's first Chicken Head is what the word whimsical is all about and although it's a word that I don't use often it fits the bill perfectly here.  This was designed to be displayed in the extreme lower corner of a window so that it appears as though the chicken were outside looking in.   All I can say is, "Mission accomplished!"

 

Jan knocked out her Sunburst Flower Window and the two pieces that she redrew /added due to breakage are not perceivable at all. Her use of a heavily textured clear glass for the border sets it apart from the background glass so that the border is plainly evident while keeping all of the color within the center focal point. Nice!

 

 

 

Shelly's Tribute Window to her dear cat Toot's is ready to be displayed in a window at her house. He may be gone but he's with her as long as Shelley remembers him and this window will certainly make sure of that.

 

 

 

Cindy's newest Catch-All Tray features the same ears of corn that her last one did but this time around we see that she has a Crayfish on the opposite side rather than a Shrimp.   Both of Cindy's Catch-all Trays make such a cute and stunning pair that it would be a shame for them to go to two different  houses.  Here's hoping that they can stay together!

 

 

Linda L is using up all of the stained glass items that she's purchased over the years and this is the first of a number of 3D dragonflies that she's making.  Now that she's finished the first one and knows exactly how everything goes together I'm sure that she'll be able to assemble them faster than you can say 1...2...3!

 

 

As promised here's a look at the three Mickey Mouse Heads that Linda L made for her pool decoration now that they have been assembled. The frame work itself was instantly recognizable even when it was empty but Linda's three stained glass additions really make this shine!

 

Susan D has all of her planter and individual leaves soldered which means that when she returns she will tack solder everything together and then add tinned wires to form the stems and vines of the leaves. The final touch will be three wires to make the basket appear to be hanging from ropes the way a hanging planter would.

 

  

 

These cute little Doggies were cut, ground and foiled while Let was at home this week. She came into class, picked out a background glass, cut it and is now grinding it.  I think it's fairly safe to say that Let will be picking out a border for this upon her return.

 

  

 

 

Mary Grace has decided to make five Frames and this here is the first one. She's making this in its entirety to make sure that everything lines up and balances out before she makes the other four. This just needs to have three more pieces foiled and then she'll solder it and make a pair of 'legs' so this can stand on a table. And we'll see that completed next week.

 

  

 

 

Cindy has embarked on a Baseball Window that will feature a name inside of the banner that cuts across the ball. Alas, Cindy has learned that this can be no more that 12 x 12 inches (smaller than what it is now) and thus will end up doing some re-cutting when she comes back in. Looking at this I'm thinking that Cindy may not have realized that the circular item behind the banner is a baseball and it should be white rather than red.  

 

  

 

 

Betty's Curved Geometric Window is not only all cut out but ground as well. She's about to begin foiling after which she'll tack it together and solder it all up. This won't need a border for two reasons: 1) It would introduce too much 'straightness' to a window that features curves everywhere and 2) luckily enough there are enough lines to attach the channel and even the hooks that this will hang by. I believe that this window will hang as a diamond rather than a square and if you're not following me on that you'll see what I mean when it's been completed.  

 

  

 

 

Although it's hard to see while it's lying there on the work table, the color that Linda F Picked for her final border is root beer. It's a glass that gives a nice wooden frame effect to any window that it surrounds and it makes a far, far better choice than a bland neutral color. Me, I'm a little shocked that Linda didn't go with a green border since that's her favorite color!

 

  

 

 

The sheet of glass that Judy picked out for her background wasn't wide enough to reach across her window so she has a few pieces missing. However, there is enough glass left over in the drop off at the bottom to fill in those missing pieces and that will happen AFTER what you see in the picture has been ground, foiled and tacked together.   That said, I'm thinking that we'll see those three missing pieces filled in next week.

 

  

 

 

Let is officially ready to solder her Mardi Gras Mask Window now that her double borders have been attached. We still need to add some channel around the outside edge but that will only take a few minutes at most and Let will still able to flip this window over and solder the second side even without the channel being applied because all of the glass has been attached and that makes it OK to flip this window over to its back side to solder.

 

With all of her glass both cut and ground Lorrie has moved on to the foiling stage of her 'Sugar' Elephants. She's already got a respectable amount of glass foiled (in just one night) so the places where her lead lines will reside are now slowly being revealed.

 

  

 

 

This Tiger Face is coming together quickly. Bee held up a huge, long and twisty piece to me and said that there was no way that she (or anyone else for that matter) would be able to make a piece like that happen without it cracking when it's soldered and I agreed. Without any coaxing at all she said, "I think we should split it here to make life easier" and I can't give her enough praise for that. Sometimes patterns contain pieces that can't or shouldn't be cut in just one piece (most times it's just an oversight in the design process) but students can be reluctant to add cuts just because they are NOT on the pattern.  Thankfully, Bee is NOT one of those students!

 

 

 

 

MiMi has just 4 large egg cartons of glass left to grind before she can wrap her pieces and then tack together the first one third of her Louis XV Lamp. Slow and steady wins the race but MiMi's grinding here is nothing short of perfection and makes the anticipation very much worth the wait.

  

 

 

Lara's Stack Of Books is moving right along and it looks like the only thing left to cut out on this are the pages of those books. And the thing is, all of those red lines that make up the pages are actually wire work so there's only a few simple pieces left to cut on this project.

 

With the flat portion of her Sunflower repair all re-cut and tacked together, Paula will attach the 3D elements that surround the gynoecium of the flower (the brown center) when she returns. That means that this will easily be completed when we next see it.

 

  

 

 

Kandise has all of her pieces cut, ground, wrapped and tacked together which means that she'll be able to solder this when she comes back in. There's actually not much to solder her but there sure is a lot of tap-tapping around the edges of this oversized suncatcher which will take a lot of time to accomplish.  Also, there will be some hidden wire along the width of this hidden in the solder on the back side to give it some extra strength.

 

 

 

 

Lastly, all of June's border has been tacked into place and her front side had been completely soldered which means that she will surely finish this when she comes back in next week. I must say that her border choice was perfect for this since her elephant is multicolored!

 

 

 

Stay awesome,

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

I Like Big Pieces and I Cannot Lie

Annette finished her RN Caduceus Window with time to spare before it becomes a graduation gift this week. She moved along quickly on this but she never moved so fast as to sacrificed precision while making it. We can all agree that he end result speaks for itself!

 

Let finished her teardrop Sunflower Suncatcher and the extra leaf she added really does add a lot to aesthetically balance out this beautiful piece of art.

 

  

 

Cindy's Crab and Corn Tray was completed and the end result is both fun and functional. Her next tray will feature the same two ears of corn set in front of another crustacean that we will see a little further along in this post.

 

 

 

Cheryl made this Beveled Cross Panel as a quick gift while at home last week and plans on making two or three more which will be similar but with the added feature of a border surrounding it the next time. Simple and elegant, windows like these always turn heads.

 

  

 

 

This week Martha cut out all of the black glass that makes up the notes to her Music! Window and has begun to grind it all. I often hear people complain about not being able to see the lines that they've traced onto black glass but Martha never said a word. It could be that she knows the secret of positioning the glass so that the glare of the light above it makes the lines VERY visible.  

  

 

 

Zoe has begun work on a new project and it is a Luna Moth Panel with a uniquely shaped background.   She's got the pieces that make up the moth traced out onto glass and separated which means that she'll cut them into their respective sizes and shapes upon her return.

 

  

 

 

Let also continued working on her Mardi Gras Mask Panel and all I can say is that it won't be long before this is completed. Let doesn't leave her stained glass tools in her bag between classes so I can't wait to see how far along she is on this when she walks back in the door with it when she returns

 

  

 

 

Betty is revisiting a window that she made way back in 2015! This is a nice curving geometric pattern that she's moving along on in a speedy manor. There's a great deal of this cut already and I'm thinking that the remainder of the pieces will be cut when we see this again next week.

 

  

 

 

Ann has her first Corner Chicken Head Suncatcher all ground and let me tell you that a few of those cuts were pretty deep indeed (pay attention to the body of the chicken).   But Ann managed and this one is now ready for foil and solder. 

 

 

Sheri is wrapping all of the pieces that she's so painstakingly ground  in her Koi Fish Window.  With copper foil now surrounding a lot of her glass her window is starting to really show off its definition.

 

 

 

 

Paula has a 3D Sunflower Suncatcher to repair and what she believed to be only a few pieces to replace ended up becoming a pretty large handful of pieces after looking closely. Still, it wasn't enough to warrant a complete remake of the suncatcher. That said, Paula did end up disassembling the entire piece to make things easier. This may come back together again when we next see Paula.

 

 

 

Before Lorrie called it a night with us she was able to finish all of the cutting and grinding of her Sugar Elephants Window. It already looks fantastic but once these pieces have copper foil around them it will be far easier to see all of the detail that is currently hidden by the pure white glass background.

 

  

 

 

This black and white cartoon becomes more and more colorful with each passing week. The colors that we see here already tell me that this is going to be a very beautiful lamp. MiMi's work is definitely not slow but it IS steady and that is what wins a race in the stained glass world!

 

 

Melissa got her first flower cut out and ground for her Tiffany Styled Birds Window. If this is any indication of what this window will look like when she's finished with it (and it IS) well then we are in for a real treat here.

 

 

 

Lara's new Stack Of Books are coming together quicker than her first stack and that's always the case when doing a project a second time. You've already figured out all of the ins and outs of the cutting and grinding process and it makes the second iteration go quicker as evident in the picture below..

  

 

Judy has all of her glass foiled and has begun to tack together her Humming Bird and Flowers. When she comes back in she'll be able to pick out a background glass, put the flowers and bird on top of it and then trace around them. Then it's a simple matter of separating the pieces and grinding them here and there for a perfect fit. 

 

  

 

 

With the front of her Sun Burst Window soldered and the back side nearly completed I would say that it's time for Jan to begin keeping her eyes opened for an idea of what she may want to do next!

 

  

 

 

Next up is Cindy's second Louisiana tray which only needs a little more solder before the five pieces are  assembled into all of their three dimensional glory!  Similar in design to her first tray, this one has the exact same color scheme but features a Crayfish rather than a Crab.

 

  

 

Bee is as busy as a bee working on her Tiger Eye/LSU Window. She's decided to continue her work on this by completing the right side of the Tiger Face so that she can get the hardest part of this multi sectioned large window out of the way.

  

 

 

Cheryl has officially arrived to the soldering portion of the creation of her Harley-Davidson Window now that she's finished cutting, grinding, foiling and attaching the background glass and her transparent black border.  The end is near!  

 

  

 

I apologize for any and all errors that you find in this as I haven’t had my afternoon coffee yet.

 

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks