Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Billie couldn’t make it in today and that explains our ‘one missing’ in the title of this post. As for the ‘one finished’, well that would refer to Ann’s finished mirror. I didn’t want an ugly ceiling reflected in it for the picture so I took it outside to get some clouds and sky reflections in it without realizing that the extra bightness in the center would wash it out a bit. Still, you get a good feel for how nice this mirror is. Ann’s got her next project in mind and it will be a bit smaller than this one. Wondering what it is? Come back and check the BLOG next week to see what she’s started! Here’s her finished mirror.

Ellen decided on an Iris window that looks wonderful when it’s finished. Ellen got the flower, the leaves and the pot all cut and ground today and is moving very quickly. She took it home to wrap the glass so she could start tacking it together right away next week and I must confess that I forgot to snap a picture before it was all boxed up to go. So here’s the best I can do this week: It’s a picture of the basic pattern. You won’t see much on the small thumbnail seen below so if you really want to see what she’s making click on the picture for a (slightly) better look.

Kim’s Hot Air Balloons are only a few inches away from the finish line. The front is finished and the back is soldered. We’re just going to touch it up and smooth out a few rough spots in the soldering before we wash this window and take it home. I’m not sure what Kim plans on doing next but I know to expect good things from her.

Julie and Kim are running neck and neck on finishing their windows and it looks like it will be a tie next week. There was a lot to solder on this beautiful clear window and I can’t wait to see it finished. Julie will be using black patina rather than the familiar copper patina which ought to make this window sparkle wonderfully. The black lead lines really add contrast to all the clear and help define each separate piece of glass. Alas, it’s a clear window and the lead is not coloered yet so all you really see is the board underneath the project. But while I was taking pictures I accidentally pressed the shutter button before I had the camera positioned above the window. I thought about deleting the picture but for some reason I left it on the camera and when I saw it I was glad I kept it. You can see it as the second shot of Julies window. I think that the side view helps show what this window is all about even though it’s not hanging. Julie moved through this project quickly and efficiently handling everything by herself with little input from me. My hat’s off to her for taking charge and making it look easy.

We also had Joann stop by this afternoon to pretty much finish cutting her Mallard. The only thing left to cut are the leaves and then she’ll be grinding. Her choices in color are flawless and this will be one spectacular window, mark my words. Oh, and looking at the picture I see we need to cut a head yet, but that isn’t even worth mentioning…

I believe that about wraps up Wednesday’s class. The highlight of the class (to me) was when The Stray Cat’s hit “Stray Cat Strut” came on the radio and almost everyone started to sing some of the lines to themselves (but loud enough for everyone else to hear). I never realized what an infectous little song it was.

And speaking of cats I have to mention that poor little Ethel has lost 2 of her three kittens today. We took her and her remaining kitten to the vet first thing this morning but there wasn’t much that could be done. As I type this I worry about the last kitten who’s barely hanging in there. Here’s two pictures from about 4 days ago of Ethel’s crew in happier times.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

It was a quiet but productive night since only 2 of our classmates arrived tonight. Amanda has been having problems with her hand and is getting that check out so neither she nor her sister Christine made it in tonight. We hope Amanda is doing better and we look forward to them next week.

Jane cut her 2 colored border (two different blues), ground it and got it all squared up and attached to her window. Then she tackled her big fear: Soldering. And it turns out she was all worked up over nothing because her soldering is wonderful. She soldered the first side in about 45 minutes (which isn’t bad at all) but by then it was 9:00 and time for her to pack it up. She’ll definately finish it off next week.

When I first walked in the studio and saw that Jane had arrived I couldn’t help but notice that she had a new project with her. And I’m not talking about a picture in a book or an idea she had in her head. I’m talking about a new fancy butterfly pattern with some intricate cuts on the lower wings. She had seen the pattern and decided to cut, grind and wrap it at her home during the week and didn’t finish it only because she had no soldering iron there with her. I’m so impressed at what she did without anyone around to steer her or reassure her that she was proceeding correctly. She’s doing WONDEFUL work! Here’s her two projects.

Craig looked thru some books and found a window he liked in a Beveldine book. Beveldine is a company that manufactures approximately 25 different bevel pieces that can be scattered throughout windows or arranged in patterns. They offer a book that is filled with different design ideas and Craig found one in there that he really liked. But he wanted color in his window not all clear glass. Easy enough– instead of using bevels we can cut colored glass in the shapes of the bevels and make the design that way. So he measuered the window he wants to put this in and then I altered the pattern during the week so it would fit in his window.

Tonight he cut out all the colored glass. Craig’s cutting was amazing and he managed to cut all 57 colored pieces as well as get them all ground so he could take them home to wrap before next Tuesday. Next he’ll trace the drawing out onto a sheet of clear glue chip and trace around the pieces he’s already cut. This method saves glass and makes fitting the window together much easier. I think he’s going to be pleasantly surprised at how quickly things go using this method.

And that’s what happened with us tonight. We’ll be back tomorrow with more information on how things went for our Wednesday afternoon class.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Today literally flew by. Everyone was busy but everyone was laughing and having a good time as well. We covered this weeks episode of Desperate Housewives since someone’s VCR was never adjusted for daylight savings time, we listened to a slew of Elton John songs after Kim pointed out that for some reason we had no music on this week, and we discussed what our next projects were going to be. Some people are already thinking about gifts for Christmas. I just wish I could be more like Billie instead of waiting until the last minute to start contemplating my holiday projects.

Julie finished cutting her borders for her window and that was when I realized we had a slight problem. The first border is a glass called ‘Reeded’ and it is almost a quarter inch thick where the heavy reeds lie on the pattern. Since Julie plans on coloring the lead lines black we have had to wrap her glass with black backed foil so you don’t see the copper colored back of the foil through all her clear glass. The slight snag was the fact that I suddenly realized we don’t have any quarter inch black backed foil. So rather than wait a week for it to come in we improvised. She cut all her borders, ground them and then took them home to wrap with the smaller 7/32 black back foil. Since it’s a little short she’s wrapping each pices twice. Once covering the top of the glass and on the second pass she’s covering the bottom. It’s a little extra work but sometimes you just have to make due with what you have on hand (especially if you are working with a deadline). This is the window with one row of the Reeded glass in place, the beveled border in place, but the last border missing (it’s at her home being wrapped as I type this).

Ann’s hanging mirror is ready for solder. She got her border cut on the strip cutter and got everything all wrapped and ready to go. I’m sure it will be on the wall in her bedroom next week. I really wish you could see the color of the border better but the light reflecting in the mirror is making it hard to get a good picture.

Ellen’s lighthouse is one of the most charming windows I’ve seen in a long, long time. This is her first project and her soldering was nothing short of amazing. Normally I will touch up problem spots on a window but Ellens window was practically flawless. She’s another natural at this and I know we’ll be seeing great things from her in the future. Just look at what she made in 4 short weeks:

Kim’s Hot Air Ballons are all cut! I’ll slap a border on it for her during the week so she can get to soldering it right away. After all the cutting, grinding and wrapping she’s done to get the window this far I’m not worried about her not doing the border and losing out on any experience– she’s had PLENTY of experience doing this work in the past 10 weeks! Next week she can sit down and relax while she solders.

Lastly we have Billie’s finished handmirror. This is a small (but NOT simple) project that looks wonderful on any dresser. Alas, once again we have very little color showing in the photograph due to the amount of light boucing off the mirror. It looks good here on the Blog but seen in person it’s got a lot more color to it. The black areas are actually dark green leaves.

Everyone did wonderfully today and we’re all looking forward to next week when we can do it all again. You’ve all done a great job, Ladies!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

We had a new student tonight and a possible ’student transfer’ that didn’t work out in the end.  With that said, let’s start with our newest student.

Craig finished his butterfly with ease and seems to be another natural at this. He was able to do all the steps includinging the soldering (which is hard to get down on a piece this small) with little help on my part.  He’s decided on a traditional type geometric pattern for his second project made with a large glue chip background.  This is his finished Butterfly:

Christine took her glass home with her and planned on doing some cutting but her cat wanted to help and broke a few pieces she’d already cut!  Even still, Christine was able to get most of her window finished this week and really only needs her flower centers cut.  The thin sections of her flowers were a real pain in the butt  and although I helped her on some of them she now understands how to cut thin, complex curves.  We could have made the curves easier by breaking them up with lead lines but that would detract from the window.  Plus her cutting skills have grown greatly by tackling these complex shapes.  The rest of this window will be easy and it’s all down hill from here.  She’ll be grinding next week for sure.

Amanda also worked at home during the week and is cutting wonderfully.  She had a few ‘fun’ cuts in her window also, but I’d rather see our students work on projects that they chose that contain some hard-to-make cuts rather than fly through something that they don’t really want to make and that anyone can do.  The windows we make in our first lesson are more complex than what other stained glass glasses allow you to start on.  This gives the student a nicer window and a lot more skill and satisfaction. Amanda and Christine are always laughing throughout the night and really seem to be enjoying themselves.  I know I enjoy having them in the class.  This is what Amanda accomplished this week– you can really see her progress and her beautiful choice of colors.  She has just the brown sea bottom left to do and then it’s on to the grinder next week.

Jane has finished grinding her window, wrapping it and has tacked it all together.  All we need now is a border and she’ll be soldering next week.  She had taken her pieces home to wrap last week and although she was worried about how well she had wrapped them it turned out that she had nothing to worry about.  Wrapping small pieces is difficult because your fingers are always in the way– wrapping large pieces is equally as difficult because the foil tends to wander off center and flip around as you wrap the glass.  All of Jane’s pieces, both large and small, were perfectly wrapped and pressed.  I know Jane is worried about soldering her window but she’s made each process she’s done so far look easy.  I’m not worried at all about her ability in the least and next week when she gets her hands on a soldering iron again she’ll see that she’s been worrying about nothing.  Here’s what she has finished this week:

We were going to gain another student tonight at the expense of losing one on Wednesday afternoon.  Joann will be transferring to Tuesday evenings from Wednesday afternoons but she was unable to make it this week.  We’ll be looking forward to seeing her again next week and getting more of her Mallard Window cut.  She’s another student whose cutting is impeccible.

I’ve had hundreds of students over the years and I can honestly say that the two groups we have learning now have caught on faster than most.  Maybe it’s seeing how far some of the other students are getting along on their projects or maybe it’s the fact that they are all working on what they wanted to make rather than being forced to work on a window from a few easy hand picked patterns, I can’t say for sure.   But I do know that these people are turning out beautiful works.

Paul

Bayou Salé Glassworks 

It was a long night but once we got the class going I forgot all about the fact that I didn’t sleep the night before. In case you hadn’t read earlier, our cat Ethel had 7 kittens on Tuesday night which kept us up until classes started the next day.

Finally, noon got here bringing all 6 of our students. Julie got here first and finished the center part of her window. Then she slapped on the curvy end pieces to square it all off (Julie tackled the curvy pieces with great confidence and she didn’t break a single piece). All that’s left now is 3 borders and one of them is already cut (the center border is beveled). Soldering is just around the corner now!

Ann finished cutting, wrapping and tacking the flower section of her mirror. She’ll work on making a bordered mirror next week that the flower will be placed on top of. Below is a picture of all the parts set next to each other in their approximate positions to show you just what this will like. It’s hard to photograph a mirror so I set it on the ground outside hoping to get it to reflect the sky rather than myslef with a camera hanging over it…

And speaking of blue skys we have Kim’s Hot Air Balloons. It looks like we have a sun, a single section of grass, and a gondola or two to go. Then it’s the border and a finishing soldering. Kim has made this window pretty much on her own with very little help and she’s done wonderfully. I can’t wait to see it finished.

Billy has her hand mirror ready to go. She had planned on cutting a lot of it at home but ran into a slight snag when she discovered that she didn’t have a colored pattern with her to see what were leaves and what were flower petals. It sounds like it would be a no-brainer but the pattern is VERY difficult to figure out if you don’t have it colored in. Still, she was able to cut most of the pieces correctly and from there she ground them, wrapped them and tacked them all together. Then she cut the center mirror from the two edge pieces she had assembled. Billy was running out of time (there’s always someplace to get to) and she ran out taking her mirror home to wrap. I positioned the two edges and took a picture of what was left behind. Then I quickly photoshopped the picture to show you where the mirrored section will be next week when she finishes it.

Joann’s Mallard window is really looking good. Keeping track of all those feathers can be a real pain in the butt, however you can already see how great this window will look when it’s complete. Joann sat quietly at her workstation working away most the class and her cutting is spot-on. Look for this window to be yet another stunning finished project.

Lastly we have Ellen’s Lighthouse. We spent a good hour holding glass next to it trying to figure out a good choice for the border color and finally settled on a wispey gray. We had clear amber, the red from the lighthouse roof, assorted greens and blues, and even a number of variously textured clear glasses (Ellen is partial to Clear French Crackle glass) but in the end she went with a soft color to bring the lighthouse scenery into focus rather than the border itself. A job well done. And it WILL be done next week when she solders this window and takes it home.

And that was our class this week. But before I leave you I’ll wrap this up with Ethel’s project. She had 7 kittens altogether but only 3 survived. All were black save for one yellow kitten that lived for about an hour. Ethel, being only 9 months old herself, had a tough time during the delivery but she knew we were there to help her and accepted us fully when she was in crisis. Luckily she’s fine and her three surviving kittens appear to be very healthy. Here’s Ethel with her 3 finished projects. Don’t be afraid to ask for one –None are claimed yet.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Jane is finished cutting all her glass save for her border. She cut her sky and her sun today and also got half of it ground and fitted. I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll have the border on next week and be ready to solder.

Christine had emailed me a picture of a painting that she had done and wondered if she could do it in glass. Of course she can. I printed the picture out, traced the outlines and made a few adjustments to make the glass easier to cut and the pattern was set to go. And then when Christine walked into class sheshowed me a pattern that she had drawn up on her own of the same painting. In the end she went with the design with the easier cuts. She also understands what is possible and what’s not when it comes to drawing up a pattern. Hers was a wonderful design, just not quite what a beginner should tackle. Here we have the original painting and then the glass pattern with her green leaves and some of her sky cut out.

Lastly we have Amanda’s Tropical Fish window. We’ve gone with a colorful design that will compliment the doors she’ll have stained glass in soon. Amanda called about having a window made 3 weeks ago and when she dropped by to give us the templates for the windows she decided that she’d like to get in our classes also.

Here’s her Tropical Fish with the green leaves, the black sections of the fish and some of the coral cut out.

We closed up shop around 9:30pm and after Jane, Amanda and Christine left we went in the house with food on our minds. We ate while watching TV and then I sat down getting ready to write this update. Our pregnant cat Ethel was acting a bit odd so I was sort of keeping my eye on her. Just before I was about to turn in for the night I looked outside and there she was, not moving at all in the box we had on the back porch  (She’s an outdoor cat)  I got worried went outside and there she was with two kittens nursing on her.

Needless to say it has been a long night for us and Ethel alike. Ethel is only 9 months old and all our students know her as the cat that’s ready to explode. Tonight she did. At 6am she had her 7th and final kitten. She didn’t have an easy time through it and unfortunately she lost 4 of her kittens. All were black save for a single yellow one.

We’ve cleaned up the mess and are preparing for our noon class as I type this. As tired as I am I can’t imagine how poor Ethel feels. She’s passed out in a box in the bathroom while the 3 black kittens are nursing.

With that out of the way I’d just like to end this with a Happy Birthday message to both my mother and father out in Pennsylvania. My father’s birthday was Monday and my mother’s is today (Wednesday). Happy Birthday! Now, I’m going to have a cup or 2 of coffee…
Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

All went well today and everyone moved ahead with whatever it was they were working on. We had finished projects, freshly started projects and windows that are in various stages of being complete.

Kim finished cutting the larger hot air balloon in her pattern and then moved on to her grass and sky. Considering how many pieces are in her entire window, she’s about 75% finished with her cutting.

Jo Ann decided on a mallard pattern which we drew to full size from a small postage stamp sized illustration in a pattern catalog. It’s amazing what you can do with a computer and a scanner…

Ann is now begining work on a bordered mirror with a winding flower and stem tracing the right side of the mirror. She’s begun cutting the flower out which we will overlay onto the finished mirror.

Julie went full speed ahead and tacked together all of what she took home to wrap last week. The center will alternate between clear baroque glass and white baroque glass. Then she’ll square it off and add three borders (including 1 beveled border). This is where she’s at today.

Our lighthouse is moving right along. Ellen cut out all but the border of her oval shaped window and then ground it all. However, due to an error on my part in designing the pattern, we have to recut the top right piece of sky and the cloud below it. As I had it drawn the lighthouse top was off center to the right. We slid it to the left to straighten it out but that made our sky come up short. It just goes to show that while you have to look every line’s placement while drawing a pattern, you also have to step back and make sure it all lines up. I overlooked the forrest for the trees.

We also have a picture of Ellens ellusive butterfly that she made 2 weeks ago. She’s moving along quickly and I think she’s going to love her lighthouse next week when it’s tacked together.

And while we’re talking about ellusive projects I’ll bring up Billie’s 2 Cardinals that she finished today. She and Jo Ann were trying to get out the door quickly to be somewhere else on time and I missed out on my photo opportunity. So the best I can do is show you the pattern she made her cardinals from. Picture 3 of them because that’s how many she made!

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Things went great tonight with our three students: Jane, Amanda, and Christine.

Jane found a great pattern of a seagull in flight that she’s decided to work on. It’s hard to believe this is her first large window when you watched her work tonight. Her cutting was flawless and you can see this in the picture we have below. The bird has been cut out and is lying on the pattern waiting to be ground. You might think that she’s already ground it to get it to fit so perfectly, but she hasn’t. All she did was take her time and cut on the inside of the line she traced onto her glass. The bird is colored in 2 different but similar glasses– a pure white and a combination white/blue. It looks great.

Amanda came in last week to see about having a window made and ended up coming in this week with her sister Christine for classes. Her butterfly is finished and this is what it looks like. She has a design in mind for her next window and we’ll try to have it drawn out for her before she gets here for her second class next week. Good work tonight, Amanda!

Christine took to the glass cutting as easily as her sister did. She loved the iridescent glass when she saw it and cut it without a single problem. She also knows what she plans on making next week so expect to see the start of 2 new windows here next Tuesday evening.

Everyone did a wonderful job tonight and it was nice to have the place somewhat full rather than practically empty as it was last week. Our night class is starting to fill up so now’s the time to call about getting in on them. Look for another post tomorrow evening to show what’s happening on our afternoon class…

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks