Trust Me

The Flower Hand Mirrors have certainly been a popular item this year with our students as well as the new modified cross pattern.  Myrt's been working on multiple sets of both items and we'll start this off by looking at her latest Hand Mirror and her latest Cross. 

Myrt's Cross is the newest version of a pattern that's been around for a while now.  It started off being a simple symmetrical cross with a diamond center.  Then someone wanted one a little different so we rounded the points on every other piece that makes up the cross.  The final additions were the 4 pie wedges that make up the circle that the cross sits in front of.  

 

This is a second cross that Myrt made this week but she didn't get it washed or colored for me to get a completed picture of it.  Because of that this will have to do.

 

Ann needed to do some surgery on her large Flower window.  She accidentally broke one of the side pieces and didn't have a big enough piece of scrap glass to re-cut it so she added extra leaves and flowers on both sides to balance it all off.  And if I hadn't told you this story you'd never know there was a problem.  Anyway, it's all tacked together now and next she'll add a border and some channel before getting ready to put the final soldering job on this window.

Bonnie not only managed to get all of her large Butterfly cut out, she also has it all ground and half wrapped.  I think it's safe to say that this will be flying out the door any day now!

"Trust me."  Yeah, famous last words.  I said that we'd grind the background and then lay the Dragonfly on top of it, trace around it and then re-cut the pieces for a perfect fit.  But when Patty finished grinding and asked about doing that I said to go ahead and wrap it all instead.  Before she left I realized that I forgot to show her how to cut in the Dragonfly and now I'll never live it down. 

Terry is all set to begin wrapping her Egret Window.  There are 2 pieces of tree missing in the picture but that's only because she had them over at the grinder while I was snapping my pictures.  And guess what Terry will be doing next when she completes this project.  Another Egret!  When you're on a roll....

Here's a look at one of the hand mirrors that Cindy is working on.  The glass shows you how far she is on the project but the paper that the pattern is drawn on shows you just how many of these she's made.  It may be time to retrace this pattern because it's certain getting awfully ratty looking! (The pattern not the mirror itself!)

Roxie has decided to make one of the Butterfly Lawn Ornaments that we last saw done about 2 years ago.  Since she has all of her pieces cut and ground she'll be foiling them so she can tack this all together next week and hopefully take it home with her.  She'll tack these 2 wings together at an angle to give this butterfly a 3D look and then attach it to a post so she can put it in her flower bed. 

In the immortal words of Porky the Pig I will leave you with a, "Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!"

PaulBayou Salé GlassWorks

I Smell Pin Heads

Glass headed pins certainly have their place when it comes to making stained glass.  If you're using plastic head pins to hold your pieces into place when you are tacking your project together and your soldering iron bumps against them, well, everyone knows that you're tacking without having to look up...

Let's start this off with a look at Cindy's completed Diamond Fleur De Lis Window.  Geometric designs like this need to be done precisely because your eye will immediately see where the pattern isn't symmetrical.  A flower can be off, even a face can be off and it will still look fine, but a window like this needs to be balanced perfectly and Cindy succeeded in doing that on all counts.

Myrt has made her first Flower Hand Mirror and she's incorporated the initial 'J" on the leaf on the left side of this mirror.  She's taken a break from the Semi-Victorian window she's been making so she can get a few smaller items (crosses and hand mirrors) finished before the school year ends.  Why the rush?  Because she's retiring and doesn't plan on going back to school after this year is over!  All I know is that if the rest of her mirrors turn out as nice as this one Myrt will always be remembered fondly.

As you may recall Roxie is also making Flower Hand Mirrors and although hers don't have initials they certainly look just as nice.  As I've said before, I never would have thought to use this color combination but perhaps that's why I like Roxie's version so much.  This is the last of Roxie's mirrors and next week she'll be moving on to butterflies.

Susan put the finishing touches on her Shrimp De Lis Lawn Ornament during this class and once again her attention to detail made a beautiful finished project.  This piece gets staked into the ground in a flower bed and gives a very Louisiana feel to the yard.  The wire work on this project that forms the shrimps legs and antennae adds so much to this piece that without it you wouldn't even realize what it was.

Susan didn't end the class by completing her Shrimp De Lis--  She also managed to get this American Flag Ornament cut out and ground as well.  She bundled these pieces up with her and has taken them home to wrap so I'm sure it will be together before we know it.

 

Myrt also worked on another project this week as well.  Her second Hand Mirror has different colors from the one she finished and it's missing the initial on the side but the workmanship is the same as it always is with Myrt's projects. Flawless.

Bonnie made short work of her butterfly this week.  Not only has she gotten far more confident with her ability to pick out colors but she's also managed to get this all cut out and have some of it ground before she walked out the door at the end of class. Isn't this colorful?

Sonia's Pokeno Girls are just about ready to be walkin' away and out the door.  Everything is cut, ground and tacked together so once she decides on a border color this window will be just about set.  Choosing a color for the border on a colorful window like this is very important.  The wrong color will easily throw the whole project off so I'm guessing that the decision will be a group effort.  I can't wait to see this up in the air with some light behind it.

Terry's latest Egret Window is also moving right along.  About all that's left for her to cut are the 2 trees that border the left and right of this piece.   Since Terry's been grinding this as she's been cutting she'll be able to start foiling her pieces (wrapping them) soon.  And we all know that Terry makes short work when it comes to soldering her windows.  :-)

Here's Patty's Dragonfly Window with the background all cut out.  I know this will be hard to believe when you look at the picture but this hasn't even been ground yet!  The Dragonfly is actually just resting on top of the finished pieces so that everything fits together perfectly. Once it's all ground and fitted she'll place the Dragonfly on top of her background, trace around it and make a few cuts to ensure a perfect fit. This project is near completion so expect to see it finished soon.

And that's about all there is for this weeks update.  With Myrt and Cindy both working on hand mirrors I was a bit confused about who made what but I think I have it sorted out correctly.  If not I'll made a correction in the next post.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Acid Re-Flux

As promised in our last update, here's a look at Terry's latest completed project, her jewel encrusted Fleur De Lis Window.  She went with an iridized clear border glass that just seems to set the entire window off nicely.  And the jewels traveling inside the border made a big difference in the overall feel of the window also.  It just looked plain and unfinished without them.  But no one would ever use those words to describe Terry's window now!

 

And Roxie completed another Flower Hand Mirror this week but since I seem to have screwed up the picture I'm going to show you another shot of the last one she finished.  the only real difference between the one you're looking at here and the one that was actually finished is the color of the flower centers.  You'll just have to trust me when I say that the mirror turned out beautiful (as they always do).

 

And pictured below is a look at Roxie's next Flowered Hand Mirror.   She has it all ready for soldering and she'll most likely do that and have this one completed next week.

 

Bouncing back to Terry again, not only did she complete her FDL window this week-- she also got a major portion of her next project completed as well!  Here's a look at her new project, the Egret.  See all of those little yellow dots at the bottom of this window?  Well those are yellow headed pins which means that she has an awful lot of this ground already as well as cut out!

 

Ann's Flower Window is now 100% ground.  Everything fits together perfectly and the only glass left to cut is the border which, of course, we won't do until this is all tacked together.  When a window of this size this is foiled there's a good chance that it will grow a bit and force us to make a few adjustments to get everything into place again.  If we cut or border to fit this now it may not fit after Ann makes adjustments.

Bonnie is in the process of working on a glass  Butterfly Wind Chime.  She's making a large butterfly from which will hang 6 or 8 different lengths of rectangular glass.  Here's a look at the butterfly portion of her newest project.  As you can see, she has most of her glass picked out already.

Cindy has her four corners in place and the border tacked on to her Diamond Fleur De Lis Window.  She also has the channel on it which means that there's only soldering left to go on this project.  I'd say it's a safe bet to say that this will be completed during her next class.  Look for the finished version in our next update!

Patty got the dragonfly of her Dragonfly Window cut out and tacked together.  It's made with filigree wings which means that she won't have to cut out 100 little tiny pieces of glass to make the wings look real.  Instead she just cut 4 large wings and foiled a brass cutout to each of the pieces.  Once it's soldered you'll never know that it wasn't all cut out.

Patty also traced out all of her background on this colorful  piece of glass.  Next week she'll cut this out and you'll get to see just how everything fits together.

 

Sonia has the lions share of work completed with her Pokeno Girls Window.  All but the fill in pieces are cut and she's working on wrapping and tacking everything into place .  She's redone a few of the lead lines to make it feel more balanced and it's looking almost complete now.

That's about it for this post, be sure to check your email (or Facebook account of you follow us there) for another update notification over the weekend!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Don't Hate The Player...Hate The Game

This time around we start by taking a look at Anita's completed Black Window.  The black glass she used for the background lets no light through which means that the transparent colored glass she used for the rest of it really stands out when there's light behind it.  This is actually the first of 3 windows that Anita will be making in this motif. Hopefully we'll see the others soon!

 

Ann's Flower Window is coming along better than ever.  There's only the center left to go before she gets to work wrapping all of these pieces.   I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not but this is a large window that measures almost 3 feet across.  It's an ambitious project and she's doing great!

 

Myrt has the last border cut on her semi-Victorian themed window and it's just about ready to be tacked into place.  This design has been raising eyebrows in the shop and it wouldn't surprise me if we see more of these being made later on.

Cindy had all four of her corner sections completed when she came in to class so she worked on cutting, grinding and attaching the background of her Diamond Fleur De Lis window.   She decided to go with a clear glue chip glass and now all this needs is a border to finish off the cutting process. 

 

Lastly we look at Terry's jewel encrusted Fleur De Lis.  She originally cut a standard border but after seeing how it looked she decided to add iridized globs on every other other lead line (of the border).  She thought about using them on every line but after polling the class we all thought it looked best with 2 globs on each side.   We'll see this window completed in our next update.

Speaking of the next update, I've had it pretty easy with the last Blog post and this one.  Both were small classes and easy to do but the next one appears to have a lot of pictures that I need to edit so I'm thinking that one will be completed Friday rather than Thursday.  Either way, we'll have three new posts here before the weekend.  Yippie!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

The Stained Glass Theorem

It's been a while again so we're going to be doing a marathon catch up session here.  Luckily, since we've had many students participating in extracurricular events on class nights there isn't a whole lot to report.  Sooooo, we should be able to catch up within a week or so.

Ok, so let's look at Cindy's Fleur De Tiger Eye Window.  She completed this a while back and now we're getting a look at it for the first time off of the table and with some light behind it.  Cindy's been doing excellent work and she's been doing a lot of it at home.  And I have to say yet again that she loves the small pieces.

 

This is a look at Cindy's other work in progress-- a Fleur De Lis made of diamonds. Originally designed and made by Terry, Cindy just loved the look of this window and said she had to do it as well.  She's altered the colors a bit to give it a patriotic flavor and as seen below she's working on the 4 smaller FDL's that go in each of the corners.

 

Ann has made great progress on her large Flower Window.  A lot of the outside edge of this window has now been ground and there's really just the bottom right corner and the center that needs to be fitted into place at this point.

 

Myrt's Semi-Victorian styled window is really taking shape now.  It's tacked together and her inner border is cut and ready to be wrapped.  Myrt is probably going to be taking a break from this window since she has a few smaller stained glass items to make before graduation comes around.  Rush orders always take precedent...

Terry had an interesting idea and added some clear iridized  lobs as a trim of sorts to her latest Fleur De Lis window.  Talk about a striking effect.  I can't wait to see this one lit up.  And wait until you see how she carries this theme into her border.

 Lastly we take a look at a window that Anita made a long time ago.  Sadly there was a crack in the sky and when she replaced it the color was very much off from the rest of the glass.  To make matters even worse the glass was discontinued which means that what you are looking at below is the same window that you saw months ago but with a completely new sky.  It took a lot of work to break out and replace all the blue sky pieces but Anita managed like a pro.  And looking at it now you'd never suspect that so much of this window was recently replaced.

 

We'll have another update within a day or so so keep your eyes opened for that familiar notice in your email box.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Do These Taste Stale To You?

A word of advice to all chip eaters out there. Always check the bag if your chips appears to be soggy.

Always...



So, Susan finished her Shrimp encrusted Fleur De Lis Garden Decoration on a 3 foot stake this past week. (Say that 3 times!) Soldering it together wasn't hard at all, what was time consuming was the wirework. Those legs and antennas may look simple enough but I always worry about them too much and end up taking far longer than I should to get everything attached in a way that looks natural yet unplanned even though the planning process is extreme. Still, I think we managed here.




Roxie has 2 out of 4 of her Hand Mirrors completed. These 2 mirrors are a great example of how colors in glass vary. Both use the same brown glass but some of the pieces almost look like they're amber rather than brown. It's this shading variation that can makes certain glass look so natural. Flat, plain colors are too even and consistent to look natural which is why these mirrors look so great. That and the fact that Roxie is a perfectionist.

Cindy's latest Tiger Eye De Lis window is looking just as good as her last one did. Practice makes perfect! Which is a far better way to look at it rather than saying If at first you don't succeed try, try again. At any rate you can't miss that Tiger eye in the middle of her Fleur De Lis, can you?

Ann's been busy weeding her garden by grinding her flowers and background for a perfect fit. It's really starting to take shape and you can see just how colorful this window will be when it's lit up.

Speaking of colorful, Anita's window proves that black glass doesn't have to be dull and dreary. Using black for a background color usually makes the rest of the window stand out more dramatically than it normally would. The fact that no light comes through the black glass ensures that the focus of this window will be her center emblem and inner borders.

Fran has got one of her Fleur De Lis windows all tacked together and ready to be soldered. You can also see that she has 2 more Fleur De Lis' cut out and ready to be ground. She's thinking about reducing the size of this window by about 1 inch so the borders won't waste as much glass as they do at this size. It's not going to be enough of a change to really notice but it will greatly reduce the amount of waste that's created when she cuts her borders. And it will eliminate the need to join 2 separate pieces of glass sometimes don't match very well on two sides of the border.

Myrt has all of her Traditional Window ground and she's begun wrapping it. She will tack this together when she comes back into class and then start adding her borders. The double border is a definite now and she knows that one of the borders will be black. That we'll see next week.

Since Patty has completed her last cabinet door she has decided to do a Dragonfly Window. Wait until you see the wings on this dragonfly! She'll be cutting them out of iridized clear granite and then she'll use the brass filigrees you see in the picture to make it look at though she spent weeks cutting and grinding when she only actually work on 4 pieces of glass.

Terry is embarking on new Fleur De Lis and this one is going to be studded with clear round globs. It will take a bit of grinding to get this to fit together but I know that Terry can certainly do it. The trick to this window is to get it ground and fitting together BEFORE she starts to grind the globs into place. With the Fleur De Lis portion fitted and pinned into place it will make the rest of the grinding MUCH easier.


And we'll exit this Blog Update with a look at Sonia's Pokeno Girls as they walk away without a care in the world. She's got the bottom of the window and the left side completed and she'll have the rest of the background finished when she returns. We re-drew the extra lead lines on the pattern to even things out since the original had a few lines that were unnecessary and threw the balance of the window off. But that's not a problem anymore.

Although this post is late we're still up to date. I blame the bad weather playing havoc with our internet connection for the slight delay.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks