Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Even though we were missing Ellen (who’s away on a trip), Gerald (who was with his kids), Mark (who helped move an office), Kim (who tended to family business) and Fran (who is recovering from a knee injury), we had a rather full week with 3 new students and 2 others starting their first real stained glass windows.

Jane started working on her Moose Window after spending a little time trying to find 2 shades of brown that were different yet similar enough to casually mistake for the same piece of glass. We wanted a very subtle distinction between the colors and managed to find 2 of the perfect pieces. Of course we were really cutting it close because we didn’t have much of one of the colors, but we managed! With only the background left to be cut, I’m going to assume this will be finished quickly. And when it’s completed Jane will begin working on the American Medical Association’s Caduceus of Mercury (otherwise known as a Karykeion of Hermes). The names may not mean much to you but you most certainly know the symbol (which is pictured to the right of Jane’s Moose Window).

While Jane was trying to fit all of her large pattern pieces onto a rather small piece of glass, Christine was working on her latest project, a flowered hand mirror. I’m no longer sure where this pattern came from anymore but I know I’ve made dozens of these mirrors over the years starting way back in the early 80’s. And although Christine hasn’t cut a piece of glass in close to a year she jumped back into it like she had never stopped. She has everything but the mirror cut and ground and has taken her pieces home to wrap. She won’t be in next week (due to the holiday) but you can count on seeing her mirror finished when she returns in 2 weeks. The picture I have below is of the pattern and then a finished version of it that I made a while back. I forgot to take a picture of what Christine accomplished before she went home with it.

One of our 3 new students this week is Grace who made her first project with us on Tuesday night. She handled everything perfectly and managed to finish her red winged butterfly without a single problem. She plans to do something in an LSU window for her first big project next week. We’re not completely sure about the design yet but we’re leaning towards having a tiger paw hanging over the top of the LSU letters. Check back next week to see what we’ve decided on!

While we’re on the subject of butterflies let’s see the other two that we had made in class this week. Tiffany and her husband Jimmie came in together on Monday night for their first class which (as we all know by now) means that they made butterflies. I hate to sound like a broken record but neither of them had any problems at all during any of the steps. By 9:10pm they had butterflies in their hands that only needed to be washed before they took them home. Tiffany is still undecided as to what she’ll be making next but Jimmie plans on doing a fish window for his first project. Here’s what their butterflies looked like with Tiffany’s on the left and Jimmie’s on the right. It’s interesting to see how colors make such a big difference on the feel of the project when it’s finished. Although we have three butterflies this week all done on the same pattern, the colors make them each different from one another.

Mary Lynn and Janice both decided to do the same Iris Window with one difference. Colors. Mary Lynn has chosen soft colors to match the room she’ll be hanging it in. These softer colors help give her window a more traditional look. Her cutting ability became more confident with each piece of glass she successfully completed and she’s moving along faster than I had originally thought she would. She’s both amazed and concerned at how ‘horribly’ it’s fitting together but she has nothing to worry about– her window already looks better than most of the windows you see for sale at most home improvement stores and nobody’s window fits together without a lot of coaxing from the grinder. I like her color choices so much I may steal them and use them in a window of my own sometime down the road. She plans on squaring off this design but before we do that we will get the oval ground and tacked together.

The second Iris Window we have is being made by Janice and her color choices are brighter which give her window a more modern look about it. As I stated earlier with the butterflies it’s amazing how the colors can change the mood of a window. Like Mary Lynn, Janice got much farther along with the progress of her window than I thought she would which means that she should be finished cutting the oval section next week and get working on grinding. Both of these Irises are coming alone great and are going to look fantastic.

Cheryl claimed that the smaller balloon that she worked on during class “kicked her butt”, but if you look at how it fits together I’d say she knocked that balloon in the dirt and showed it who was boss. It’s a tiny balloon and the pieces are easily mistaken for the small scraps that you throw away when you’re cutting glass. lol This balloon night have brought back some ‘fond’ memories of cutting all the small pieces in the RV window that she made about a year ago. Luckily there aren’t many small pieces left in the Balloon Window so the rest should go by far more easily for her.

And finally we have Joey who got the zinc channel around the outer edge of his window and continued along with his soldering. By the end of the night he had only the numbers on the back side of the window left to finish. I think I can safely say that this window will be completed next week. Joey’s soldering on this window has improved by leaps and bounds so it won’t take long to touch up anything that needs any adjusting… I can’t wait to see this one finished next week and hanging in front of Joey and Cheryl’s house the next time I go by. I know the picture of it looks a bit funny this week but that’s only because we’re looking at the back of the window so everything is reversed.

Next week is a holiday week so we’re not sure who will be here yet on which days or nights, but classes will be going on. We’ll have at least one finished window to show off here so come on back and see where we stand next week.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

We have 2 new students this week and that means 2 more butterflies exist here in south part of Louisiana. But we’ll start this week’s update by looking at what Mark got accomplished during his visit with us on Tuesday.

Mark spent a long and productive day standing in front of the grinder grinding away at the pieces he’s cut out. This was his second full class of grinding but as you can see he’s getting places!  There are a lot of pieces in his window so it is going to take some time to get it finished.  I’m expecting that he’ll spend one more week at the grinder before he gets to take it home to wrap (and that will be fun also).  Needless to say the window is looking wonderful. Just wait until you see it with the defining lead lines surrounding each piece.  (Look at the detail in those flowers.)

We have another ‘bait and switch’ type tactic going on here at the shop this week as Jessie’s Owl project is being finished by her mother, Kim. From this point on we’ll be referring to the Owl that Jessie started as Kim’s project since she’s the one who will be finishing it in the next 2 weeks or so. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Kim in the shop but she hasn’t forgotten what she’s doing. The last time we saw the Owl it was all ground and waiting to be wrapped. Well, the wrapping was finished by Kim at home so when she came in this week she got it tacked together and then set out to get the first border around the window. She picked a clear glass with a heavy texture to it and will do the last border in a dark, solid color. I have 2 pictures here with the second one being a closeup that allows you to see the texture of the glass that’s been used for the inner border.

Joey came in and continued soldering the second side of his address window, but before he did that he added a final white border to make the window fit the opening it will hang in when it’s at his home. When the zinc channel gets put around this it will be the same exact size of the window it will be replacing. Luckily for us this means that he won’t need to add any kind of hooks to hang this from as the stained glass window will slide into the track that the original window came out of and lock into place. I just love easy hanging solutions and I’ll bet Joey does too! And I have to say that the final border has helped make the fancy red corners more visible.  Don’t let the picture fool you into thinking that this is an average sized window–it’s actually almost 3 foot long.

Next we have our first butterfly from one of our 2 new students. Mary Lynn picked a light pastel blue for her butterfly wings along with a see-through gray body. She chose a clear head with a a strip of deep blue running through it (very much like a marble) and ended up with a finished butterfly that turned out perfectly. She had no problem cutting glass whatsoever and I expect to see some nice work from her in the coming weeks. She has her eye on an iris window design for her first big project.

And while we’re talking about butterflies we might as well move on to the other one that was made this week by our second new student, Janice.  Like Mary Lynn, Janice had no problem cutting glass at all and you can see from her finished butterfly that her pieces fit together perfectly.  She chose a deep teal/blue colored glass with a darker body and a light blue head.  Her work was wonderful and I can’t wait to see her get started on her new project next week.

Gerald came in with his Rooster almost completely soldered so it was easy enough to get this window finished and out the door by the end of the class.  We touched up the soldering, added some hooks to hang it by, gave it a few baths in the sink to clean it off and color it and then took pictures of the finished piece.  The clear glass background worked out perfectly without having the repeating wire frame pattern detract from the Rooster itself.  As always, Gerald did a fabulous job with his latest window.  And wait until you see what he’s working on next!

And last but not least, we have Ellen’s current project.  When we saw it last week the pieces were all cut out and waiting to be ground.  This week it came in the door all ground and ready for wrapping.  We’re calling this window the “Wrought Iron” window because that’s the look the pattern implies when you see it in person.  Ellen has some thick lead lines running throughout the window (purposefully done) along with some lead inserts in the center panel. Now that everything is wrapped you can see copper coloring where the black lead will be next week.  It’s a great design and I can’t wait to see it next week when it’s all tacked together.  I have 2 views for you to look at: The first is the standard shot of the entire window and the second is a closeup of the center portion where all the work is.  Remember that all the copper you see in the second picture will be covered with lead and then colored black.  It’s going to look great!

               

And that about covers what happened this week.  We may have 2 more butterflies to see next week along with Jane’s Moose window and Frans Rooster.  And we hope that Cheryl’s back is doing better so that she can be with us next week as well!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

We have two finished projects this week so we’ll start with one of them. Cheryl’s latest LSU window looks better than ever now that it’s completed. After carefully considering what color border to use she decided on the same purple that was used in the background of the LSU section. We played around with a white and yellow border but in the end the purple was by far the best choice as you can see below. This is one of the best windows that Cheryl had made yet and everything about it went together perfectly. Great job, Cheryl!

Cheryl also started working on a large (24×24) hot air balloon window that is sure to turn out very colorful. She has the bottom section of one balloon cut out and ground already and it looks great.

Meanwhile, Joey was patiently soldering away on the front of his address window. Once the front was finished he moved on to the back side. I don’t think it will be long before this window is finished and hanging in the front of their house. The only thing left to ‘address’ is how to hang it, but I’m sure we’ll manage one way or another. Here’s a look at the front of the window all cleaned up and looking good if I do say so myself.

Gerald came in and went to work on wrapping all the background pieces for his Rooster Window. After they were wrapped and tacked into place he added a thin green border to it and some brass channel for good measure. All that’s left now is to get it soldered which shouldn’t take that much longer. I love the chicken wire background to this…

Mark began grinding the bottom left hand corner of his window that he’d finished cutting out 2 weeks ago. The pace is slow and steady but he actually got about a quarter of the window ground which is nothing to sneeze at since there are so many pieces in this pattern. You can’t see much in the picture below with the pieces of this window pushed aside to make room for the ground pieces so make sure you click on the closeup to see the detail that Mark has in this. It’s fitting together perfectly!

Ellen began working on her new project: a Wrought Iron stylized window made in clears with deep cobalt blue accent pieces. I forgot to snap a picture of the window so I drew up a quick sketch of what it looks like from memory. She’s moving along quickly on this one because she has it all cut out already save for the border pieces. Look to see an actual picture of this next week.

Fran was busy grinding away all throughout class today and almost finished all of her Rooster. The only thing left to grind is the head (as you can see from the picture below) and it’s fitting together very nicely. It looks like we’ll be seeing this finished in the very near future (my guess is about 2 weeks from now). I like the colors in this window as much as I liked the colors that Joey chose for his. It’s hard to play favorites when they look this good!

Lastly, we have our 2nd finished project of the week. It’s Christine’s Magnolia window that she did from an original painting that she had done. Christine hasn’t soldered anything in about a year now so I warned her not to worry if it didn’t come out perfectly on the first pass, but after she did a few lines she got the hang of it and finished the front side in a little over an hour or so. I figured that she’d finish the window next week but then she got all the border soldered on the back side which was much farther along then I ever would have guessed she’d get to in one night. Rather than putting off getting this window finished for another week, I finished the border for her and then washed and colored it the next morning. I have to admit that I wanted to see it get finished in the day time rather than during her night class because the picture always comes out looking much better when you have sunlight behind it rather than a florescent light. Christine did a really good job on this window and we hope to see her do more glass work in the future.

And that about wraps things up this week!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Ellen starts off our post this week with her finished Clematis Lamp. I’ve looked around online and have found simpler versions of this lamp available for $355.00. I can guarantee that Ellen’s will last her a lifetime while the ones you find in Lowes, Home Depot, or Walmart won’t last more than 10 years or so. Ellen’s lamp not only turned out spectacular, but the workmanship is extraordinary as well. Note the way all her pieces line up perfectly. Although you can’t see it in the picture let me tell you that her lead lines are all beaded evenly rather than being soldered flatly like you see on so many stained glass pieces in stores nowdays. That is part of the reason her lamp is as solid as it is. You can squeeze Ellen’s lamp shade and it doesn’t budge. Try that with any stained glass lamp that you see in one of the Home Improvement type stores and it will crush in your hands… This is Ellen’s second lamp and it’s perfect in my book.

Joey finished cutting the last pieces of the address window he’s finishing up and spent the rest of the class soldering his nearly completed window. I have to say that Joey has got the soldering process down perfectly now. Soldering is the hardest thing to learn when it comes to making stained glass but the nice thing is that you can go over your solder again and again until you get it right. Before any project leaves the door I make sure I touch up any trouble areas but it doesn’t look like I’ll have to do this for Joey anymore. His soldering this week was just shy of perfection (no one solders perfectly– it’s just impossible to do) and at this point I think I can safely say that when he finishes this I won’t have any touching up to do. Great job Joey!

Cheryl finished grinding and wrapping her tiger face and has taken it home to solder. That means that we’re just a few border pieces away from having this window finished! She has 2 big decisions left to make with this: 1) What color border should she use, and 2) Should the LSU portion of the window go above or below the tigers eyes? Look here next week to see what the answers will be!

Gerald worked on the clear glass background of his rooster window this week. He made a pattern piece resembling chicken wire and then proceeded to cut out close to 40 of them. After arranging them around his rooster he then cut out the sections where they overlapped onto the rooster and then cut and ground each overlaping section to fit. I have a sneaking suspicion this will be completed or VERY close to being completed next week (depending on whether he managed to get all his glass wrapped while he’s at home this week). Make sure you click on the picture below to see the large version of his rooster or you won’t be able to see the detailed background that he did this week.

Jane came back and began work on a second Birdhouse Window. The colors will be ever so slightly different from the first one, but the idea is essentially the same. When you find a winning combination of colors you don’t want to mess with the ingredients too much! Although I didn’t get a picture of her progress before she left I did find a shot of her last birdhouse window that shows what she go accomplished this week. Look for a more complete picture here next week.

Since we started this Blog entry with a completed project by Ellen, we’ll end it with Tommy’s completed LSU window.   This is the second of at least three that he will be doing, the next being done at his house and with a different pattern.  He managed to make this window, start to finish in just 3 classes partially due to the fact that he’s mastered using the pistol grip cutter which means that he didn’t have much to grind on this window.  I can’t wait to see more of Tommy’s work in the future.

And that wraps it up here for another week. Look for more progress next week!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Tommy was a lone student on Tuesday evening and managed to get all three borders on his window. After a quick refresher course in soldering he got the front side completed.  Considering this is just his second project I have to say that he really had a knack for soldering.  I barely need to do anything but straighten out some of lines.  Look to see this window finished and hanging here next week.

Mark cut the background and the inside white sections of his flower window this week. If you look under the window you’ll see the more solid, darker white trims that surround a lot of his flower petals. It looks like Mark will be spending his time at the grinder next week because the cutting on this window is just about finished. Again, I can’t believe how quickly Mark moves along on his projects.  I don’t know the exact number of pieces in this window but a quick count on the picture beloe show me that it has at least 150 pieces if not more.

Ellen finished soldering the outside of her lamp which always feels like it’s taking longer than it should. But rest assured she’s moving along at a great deal of speed. When she finishes the inside next week we’ll wash it up, get rid of the wax on the inside of the lamp and then color it and call it finished. I can’t wait to see this lit up and I can guarentee you that we’ll have a GREAT photo here to show this lamp off to its fullest.

Cheryl got the left side of her tiger all cut and ground. Afterwards she had to decide what to do for eyes since we all pretty much agreed the the jewels she originally picked didn’t quite make the grade. That’s the way it goes with stained glass work– sometimes you have it all worked out in your head but then while you’re cutting it out you can see that one of your choices just isn’t going to work. Cheryl routed through the glass glob we have and found 2 that looked like they would work. We dropped them into place and all agreed that the globs were the better choice. Here is what she got finished this week.

Meanwhile, Joey took over on finishing up the address sign window that Cheryl had started a few weeks back.  As you may or may not recall there was a slight problem turning up matching white glass to finish this rather large window.   With the glass finally here and Cheryl working on her tiger, Joey decided to cut the remaining pieces to finish this window.  With the corners tacked into place we got the four L shaped pieces that lie between the two blue borders.  It’s all squared up and with only 4 pieces left to cut, Joey will  be soldering next week.  Things moved a little slowly this week on this window but that was because we cut new pattern pieces to ensure a quick fit with minimal grinding.  Since Joey did 2 Cabinet Doors the same way I knew he’s be right at home doing this window in a similar fashion.

Gerald came in and finished cutting the thin pieces of glass making up the eyes of his Rooster.  After getting everything ground and fitted together he wrapped it all and is ready for his chicken wire background that you’ll see next week.  After this window is complete Gerald will be working on a HUGE window for his house.  The pattern is almost complete so look for a picture here soon.

Fran finished cutting the rest of her Rooster and then moved over to a grinder to make sure this all fits together.  She’s got most of the body completely ground with only the tail feathers and the head left to go.  I guess she’ll be wrapping pieces next week whether she’s finished grinding or not so she won’t have to do it all in one week.  The truth of the matter is that she may get this all ground next week because she certainly got a lot finished this week.  It just depends on how busy the grinders get during class…

Gerald told us about a rather large  Crawfish that he had at his house last week.  He dried it out, set it on an ant pile to let the ants clean out the insides of good and then shellaced the 8″ monster.  He brought it in to let us see it and will have a clear glass box for it next week.  This thing looks more like a lobster rather than a crawfish!

It’s Sunday already so new classes will be happening just around the corner.  This Blog posting was VERY late, but next week’s will be right on time again so come back in a few days to see what else is being done here.

Paul

Bayou Salé GlassWorks