I’m Gonna Cut Your Rain Down To A Drizzle!
Since my mind isn’t what it used to be I had to ask Ellen what that phrase was that she mentioned last week that I couldn’t remember to include in the Blog. For some reason I kept thinking it had something to do with the word ‘BRAIN’ but as you can see from the title, it was RAIN not BRAIN. At any rate, we’re unsure of what it means but isn’t that true of most idioms? I’m hoping it has something to do with Hurricane Dean…
Ellen finished the second of her cabinet door inserts this week. It was pretty much a repeat of her last class, but in reverse ’so to speak’. Here’s a shot of the two of them together outside in the sunlight. Personally, I think they’re ‘the bee’s knees…’
Next we have a look at the fleet of hand mirrors that Christine has made over the past 4 weeks. She’s ‘keeping her nose to the grindstone’ and averaging one a week which is excellent progress but she has quite a few sets of flowers cut out and waiting to be ground so she’s making some great strides towards speeding up her already fast production schedule. Here’s what she’s made so far.
Tiffany and Jimmie have finished their transom window! It was soldered last week so all they had to do was wash it, color it, wash it (again), and then wax it. I kept hearing them say “Wow, it looks completely different when it’s cleaned up†and that certainly is the case. You never get a good feel for how good a window looks until you’ve washed off all the chemicals and grime from it. All in all they finished this window VERY quickly and made the work apear to be ‘as easy as pie.’ Take a look at what they made to hang above their front door.
Grace came in with her tiger eye all wrapped and ready to go. It didn’t take long for her to tack it together and then get the border cut and attached. She ‘put her best foot forward’ and even got more than half of the front soldered! And let me tell you something: for a first time solder job it’s amazing. Grace seems to have really gotten the hang of this quickly ‘like a dog to a chew toy’! Here’s her window all put together with a striking black border surrounding it. Look to see this one finished next week.
Cheryl finished her Hot Air Balloon Window and I’m going to hate to see it go. After getting the border tacked on and then soldered into place she finished it off with some zinc channel around the edges. It was a lot of work to get finished but if there’s one thing Cheryl is not it’s ‘wet behind the ears’ when it comes to her glass work. Alas, when the end of the night rolled around the window still needed to be washed and colored. Since it was dark outside and I really wanted a picture of this window in the daylight I offered to clean it and color it the next day so I could take a picture of it in the sun. Cheryl isn’t one to ‘look a gift horse in the mouth’ so I didn’t need to twist her arm to agree to it. Since it ‘rained cats and dogs’ all day Thursday I didn’t take my pictures until Friday afternoon (which helps explain why this is late this week). Here’s her finished window.
Joey tacked together the front of his second cabinet door and then took all the pieces that he’s cut for the others home with him to see what he can get ground over the course of the week. With the front of his this window soldered I’ll tell you that it will certainly be ready next week and you’re getting that ’straight from the horse’s mouth’. Joey has shown great progress with his skills lately and I think he has this ‘under his belt’ now.
Janice came in with no pattern to start working on which normally slows us down since I need to take time during the class to draw out a pattern (which never goes quickly, but ‘that’s the way the cookie crumbles’ as they say.) She told me she needed a window about 19 x 12 with the numbers 1607 in it so we printed the numbers out, slapped a border around it and then added some fancy corners just to make it look more festive. About an hour into the class she had her pattern traced out and began picking glass. She went with red numbers on a white background with green and blue corner accents. We’re unsure yet of the border but we’re leaning towards blue. Janice started cutting her corner pieces first and within 15 minutes they were finished. She moved on to the red numbers and then still had time left in the class to start cutting the white background glass. ‘By the skin of her teeth’ she was able to finish cutting everything save for the border which she won’t cut until everything she cut this week is ground, wrapped and tacked together. Janice moved quickly and efficiently throughout the glass cutting process and managed to get 30 pieces of glass cut. This window is almost finished already!
We missed seeing Jane, Fran, Mark, Mary Lynn & Gerald this week. They all called saying that they were ‘three sheets to the wind’ but they would try to be here next week. Now, you didn’t actually believe that did you???? I hope not! I didn’t think it would be that easy to ‘pull the wool over your eyes’ anyway. Jane will be back in 2 weeks but she’s not sitting at home watching Big Brother and eating all day. She’s hammering out windows in her home workshop and has requested a pattern for when she comes back! Fran wasn’t ‘up to snuff’ this week but we should have her back next week working on her Owl Window. Mark is ‘busting his hump’ at work doing a lot of overtime making up for the fact that they are shorthanded where he works. Mary Lynn should be back next week so she can start on some door inserts for a cabinet that she’s having built. And lastly, Gerald has been working 12 hour days for a while now and got stuck at work again this week. :-( It sounds like it will be a busy here next week though so check back and see what’s happening here.
‘Elvis has left the building’ and so have I. Take care!