A Lot To Look At!
We had five people in today and a lot of work was accomplished.
Ellen had soldered her window at home and brought it in for finishing touches. Although I could have easily left it alone, I chose to nitpick and take care of small problem areas. The reasoning behind this was because Ellen had put so much time into this gorgeous window — I wanted to make sure that it was perfect. But as I said, it was a finished project that I would easily have left alone without it detracting from the overall effect. Ellen is an accomplished stained glass artist at this point and I beleive she can do anything she wants at this point. The proof is in the grapes:
After she finished coloring and waxing her window she moved on to making a wedding box. She has the pattern drawn, the glass picked and we’ll see progress on this next week.
Jane approached her latest window with some worries– she always gets a bit nervous when it comes time to solder her windows, but in the end she has nothing to worry about. She has the perfect amount of solder on all her lines and only needs to run the soldering iron over them a second time to starighten out the inconsistancies. Her window looks great so far and all she has left is the back side for next week. Jane has already picked out her next two projects with her next one being a box and then it will be onto an octagon flower window.
Lane continued grinding the green leaves of his Iris Window so he could take them home and begin wrapping them. All his leaves are now cut and ground so he began tracing out the flower petals onto his purple glass. His leaves were fairly easy to cut but his Iris petals will be a little more complex since they are smaller and have a lot more curves in them. Still, Lane’s cutting was spot on and I’m sure he’ll have all the flowers cut and will start grinding them next week. Here’s a look at what he has finishd now and a quick look at a few of his flower petals traced out onto his purple glass.
Murlin finished cutting and grinding his window this week. He’d wrapped his inner border at home the night before class which proves that, like me, he works well under pressure. He tacked the border in place and then cut, ground and attached his final border. A brass channel was added to help size the window correctly and to make the window less susceptable to breaking along the outer edges. A window becomes much stronger when you add a channel around it. Right now it’s at home with Murlin where he’s making sure it will fit into the spot he’s made it for. The window will be finished next week and I have to say that Murlin has done a great job. He’s handled every step without showing any worries or doubts about what he’s doing. And why should he? This picture proves he knows what he’s doing.
Lastly we had Gerald with us. After he finished his Oil Rig window he didn’t mentioned what he would be making next so I was completely surprised when he came in and showed me what he had decided on. It seems that he has a dentist in the family and Gerald had found a pattern on the internet of a mouth with nice big teeth that he felt would be perfect for the office. We printed out the pattern and Gerald went right to work. He’s got it all cut and ground and has it home now to be wrapped. I have to say that it looks GREAT! Lane says he should put a diamond in one of the teeth or even make one gold. What do YOU think??? 
Paul