Yo Baby’s Daddy
There was a lot accomplished this week as well as an equal sharing of joking around. The classes were filled with laughter about things no one would ever understand unless you were here for it all.
We’re still missing Mark and I’ve decided to put an A.P.B. out on him. If anyone spots him in or around the Youngsville area of LA tell him we’d love to see him again and also remind him that all work and no time off means your window doesn’t get finished! I’m only kidding here. I know that he’s stuck at work slaving away doing the job of 2 (or more) instead of working on his window and joking around with the rest of us. It’s a shame that we all have to work, isn’t it?
So let’s start with Gerald this week who worked away in his corner of the shop coming out only to grind each piece that he’d cut. His window is so large that he’s decided to break it into three sections to make it easier for him to transport, hang, and clean. He’s working on the left section first and is probably about 2/3rd’s of the way through with it. Next week he’ll cut the sky and the tree hanging above the scenery and then there will only be a border and the soldering left to finish this section. As you can see in the picture below, it’s really taking shape now.
Mary Lynn has been working non-stop on her 4 cabinet window inserts. As you might recall she had the center sections of the windows cut, ground and ready to wrap when she left last week. She ground one of the door sections while at home and then wrapped and tacked everything together before she came this week. In an effort to get these finished quickly for a gathering she’ll be having at her house she came in for both of our night classes this week since she still had a lot of work to get accomplished. When she left on Tuesday night she had the double borders cut on all four windows and one of them was almost completely wrapped. When she came in on Wednesday night she finished her wrapping, tacked them together, got brass channel put on all 4 windows and soldered the front side of the first one. Her soldering is much better than I would ever expect from someone who’s only done 1 project before this. I think we’ll be seeing these completed real soon!
Speaking of completed… Janice finished her 1607 adress window this week! She soldered the back side and then after washing it she decided that using the black patina would look better than the more commonly used copper color. Since she has a white background I have to agree with her choice because it really makes the lead lines stand out nicely. I’ve found that Janice is soldering much, much better now that she’s not fearing it as much as when she first started. It’s like anything else though as proficiency grows though experience. I think here window looks fantastic! Here’s her second window completed and ready to hang.
Christine spent most of her time on the grinder grinding out the last remaining flowers for the mirrors that she has cut. I finally heard what I suspected she’d eventually say: “I’m getting a little tired of these things.†And that’s perfectly understandable when you’re doing more than 10 of the same thing. I told her that she could take a break and work on something else but she’s close enough to the end that she doesn’t want to stop now. 
We have one new mirror to show you this week and then 2 mirrors that had to be repaired due to some bad mirror. Luckily we seem to have that problem under control since she’s using a new batch of mirror.
Denise picked out a Grape Window pattern, traced it out and then cut it all up into seperate pattern pieces. She started cutting the green leaves first and when I saw what she’s accomplished I was stunned at how perfectly her cutting is. It’s plain to see now that the cutting on her first project wasn’t just a fluke– she’s good! Looking at the picture below you’d think that the leaves have been ground to fit, but they haven’t. And Denise wasn’t just washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning house and minding the kids while she was home all week. She somehow managed to find the time to make a hand mirror from start to finish between her 2 classes! Here are pictures of the grape window she’s making and the finished hand mirror she made while at home.
I’ve been saving one of the best pictures for last. We see a lot of finished windows here each week, but rarely do we ever get to see the window(s) installed and surrounded by the envirement they were made for. Joey worked on grinding out another of his cabinet doors this week and then colored, washed and waxed one of the windows that Cheryl soldered while at home this week. And for what I believe may be the first time ever here at Bayou Salé GlassWorks, I didn’t have to retouch a single lead line on the window that she soldered! I honestly couldn’t have soldered it any better myself. Here’s a picture of the first 3 finished inserts in the doors and hanging in Cheryl and Joey’s Kitchen. These look GREAT.
And while Joey wqas working on the 4th cabinet door this week Cheryl started working on her Magic Wands. She has about 9 of the center glass staffs ready for decorating so she’s moving right along. Like the hand mirrors that Christine is working on it can be tedious and monotonous working on the same thing over and over, but once Cheryl has the staffs and the 2 end pieces attached she’ll be able to work on them here and there throughout the weeks rather than all at once. There’s really not much to see yet but here’s a quick shot of one of the center staffs.
That just about covers everything here this week. Come back next week for new projects started and old ones finished…