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
+
