Monday, May 25, 2026

Why Can't Lettuce Be Delicious?

 Linda L began and completed a cute little Pig Suncatcher for her neighbor who actually has a pet pig.   Instead of painting black nostrils Linda etched them into the pink glass that forms the nose and this is another example where subtle is better.   The nostrils don't stand out and steal the viewer's focus as they would if they were pitch black.  That said, Linda does want then to be a little darker and will readdress the situation while at home.  All in all another job well done!  

 

 
 
Bee finished her Honey Bee and turned it into a garden stake project rather than a suncatcher that would hang in the window.   Her colors express  a unique, wonderful, cheeriness to this simple but effective pattern. 


After completing her Bee, Bee set to work on designing a 12 x 10 panel with an inner beveled border and a Fleur De Lis in a circle. The circle ended up making the FDL too small so we elongated the circle into an over and then resized the FDL to match the new dimensions. With her bevels all picked out Bee is ready to cut glass.
  

 

Cindy is working on not one but two of her new Heart Within a Heart Within a Heart Patterns. It's a great design albeit with one or two semi difficult cuts that Cindy handled effortlessly. Now that they are both ground these could be completed before you know it. 

 
 

Let is working on a uniquely shaped mid sized panel in the form of a stylized Flower whose colors remind me of either a sunrise or a sunset. She wants the upper part of her leaves to be cut from a darker green than the bottom of the leaves hence the openings that you see below. The glass she wants to use is home in her workshop so I'm sure we'll see this tacked together or even more when she shows up again next week. 

  
 
 
Lara started a Monstera Leaf suncatcher that she's hoping will fit into one of her wooden bookends. The only thing left to do on this is to tap-tap around the edges and then Lara will have another project tucked firmly under her belt.
 
  
 
 
This week Julie began cutting out the Heron that is the focal point of her Heron and Flowers Window.   She's grinding as she finishes each color that makes up her Heron and I commend her on using assorted colors rather than using just one color for the bird.  She got a lot accomplished this week and I suspect that the rest of this will go pretty easily for her.

 
 
Cheryl ground the remaining pieces of her Buffalo Bills Football Helmet and then started foiling all of her glass. She's going to be leaving the lead silver on this so she'll be using silver backed foil on any of the pieces that she can see through to the back of the foil after they are wrapped. That means all of her background will be foiled in silver back but the rest of the window will be wrapped in regular copper backed foil.
  
 
 
Barbara has finished foiling her pieces so she can now tack the bottom portion of her Iris Window together and then slide the last two large pieces underneath the flowers and leaves so that she can ensure a perfect fit on those large focal points. They may essentially be blank but the last thing that we want is a lot of extra lead around the flowers and the leaves within those large expansive pieces. After that we'll see if she wants a border or two on this.
 
  
 

Kandise has all of her Magnolia Window ground and more than half of it foiled as well.  I love the true to life colors in this and I'm sure that she'll have this tacked together when she comes back in.  This will certainly be spectacular.

 
 
Betty's Bee is all ground and she's working on foiling it with only the wings left to go. When she comes back in she'll learn how to tack this together so that the entire Bee has multiple curves throughout it. Yes, it sounds a bit scary but it's actually very easy to accomplish
.
  
 
 
Keri has begun a new Flower Window and wasted no time tracing out her pattern, cutting it all apart and then getting all of the green leaves cut out of glass.   The thing about Keri is that she sets a goal and wastes no time in getting to it.
 
 
Linda F has all of the glass ground for her Transom Window and does it look wonderful. The background looks darker than it will be once it has light behind it but the general look of the window is easy to see already. Alas, Linda won't be back into class for a while as she takes a few weeks to rest and relax so don't expect this to be completed until sometime in June.

 

Lorrie's Humming Birds and Flowers Window got its first inner border attached and the glass she picked for it will make a perfect frame since it is as colorful as the window is itself. She's going to go back to glue chip glass for the final border which will make the small inner border carry more focus as a delicate but colorful frame.  What you can't see in the small picture below is the fact that Lorrie also completely soldered the front of her window already!

  

Martha's Butterfly has been ground although that might be hard to tell since all of those perfectly fit pieces are hiding under a veritable sea of pins! Martha know how important it is that pieces don't shift as you are grinding and she goes all out making sure that she's used enough pins to prevent slippage. The added bonus of all of those pins is that they allow for the growth that each piece will experience when foil has been added into the mix. The thing that students sometimes forget to do though is to remove the inside pins as you foil and reposition each piece. 

 
 
Paula had the background to her Blue Rose Window all cut, ground, foiled and ready to be tacked together as soon as she walked in the door. Once she tacked it she began working on her double borders by first cutting and tacking into position the inside white border and then following it up with a final blue border which is ever so subtly different from the blue in her Rose. There's nothing wrong with a perfect match but I've always been a fan of using something similar instead. It gives an added bit of shading that works so well.
 

Sheri's almost got her Yellow Rose Suncatcher completed. She hopes to finish it at home so there's a possibility that we won't see this completed, but I know better than to assume anything.

 

Lastly, Susan R has her Four Birds On a Branch all tacked together and will begin soldering this when she comes back in. I'm pretty sure that we'll see these cute birds among our completed projects in our next post. 

And there ya have it!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

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