Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Ahh, the obscene sounds of a broken glass piece.  Sometimes I think I can even hear it coming from the students while they are working at home!
We have a number of finished projects this week starting with Gerald’s 2nd in his series of 3 windows. He just finished the right side last night and had previously finished the left side a few weeks ago. He’ll be working on the center panel next week and in terms of work it falls between the two finished sections both literally and figuratively. There are more pieces in the center panel then there are in the right panel, but not as much work as what’s in the left panel. Here are his last two windows standing next to each other. Remember that there’s a center panel that will tie everything together.

We all hope that Gerald’s wife Marie is feeling better after an extremely close call in a car accident. Everyone in all the classes were concerned and wanted to wish her their best.

Ellen also completed her window this week and I love the color scheme. The green in the glass isn’t very visible unless the window is back lit so it really has two different looks depending on the lighting. You’re seeing it here with light behind it and its true colors showing. Stunning, isn’t it?  Ellen will be making a kaleidoscope like Julies the next time we see her.

Julie finished 2 more kaleidoscopes this week. I have to fess up a bit and say that the one pictured here last week isn’t one that she made. We were keeping her actual project off the Blog so that the person it was being for wouldn’t see it. Now the cat is more or less out of the bag so I’m going to post pictures of all of them this week. These are called Aeroscopes and the center body of the Bi-plane hides a kaleidoscope.  When you look in the rear of the plane you get to see colored patterns fold and unfold as you turn the planes ‘propeller-wheels’.

Click on this one that Julie finished last week for a better closeup view.

It was a great night for Joey, Cheryl and Russ because Joey has finished the last of his 8 cabinet doors! This means that Cheryl’s kitchen is complete, Joey can work on something different and Russ won’t have to rout out anymore cabinet doors (for a while at least). After working on these doors for a few months now, I can only imagine that Joey is ready to move on to something new and different. His work was GREAT all the way through these and he never complained about the monotony of the job once.

Now that Christine has finished all of her hand mirrors she’s decided to make 3 Kaleidoscopes for Christmas gifts. After seeing the Aeroscopes that Julie had made, Christine’s mind was set– that’s what she’s making next! So this week we saw her cut the planes and the propeller wheels out of glass. She even got the actual plane sections ground and took them home to wrap. I don’t have a picture of her pieces– rest assured that they are done but at this point it only looks like a pile of glass on the table. Just wait until you see her work next week though!

Mary Lynn continued cutting away at her Spiritual scene and managed to cut out all the brown and the straw in the manger along with the flesh colored glass. Mary Lynn thinks it’s going slowly but that’s not the case at all. Once the blanket and the two animals are cut the rest should fly together quickly! She’s already getting a lot of compliments from the students in the day classes.

Janice and Grace worked on the second side of their window. Working on two opposite ends they both got a lot accomplished. The soldering is a slow tedious process but I think we’ll see this one finished in about 2 weeks. When they left at the end of the night there was only the center section left to solder and I suspect that Grace will be able to finish that next week. That means that it will be ready to be washed and colored the following week. Alas, Janice won’t be here for that because she’s out getting herself a new hip. We’re going to miss her while she’s gone but she won’t be forgotten at all. Best Wishes from all of us here, Janice!!

Cheryl cut all of the background of her Rooster window and then ground it all to fit. The only thing left to go on this is a border and some solder to hold it all together. It’s looking great and I’ve decided to name this one the Hahn Rooster.

And Cheryl was busy at home helping Danielle get a small LSU window ready as a Christmas gift. She brought it in so I could put a brass channel around it and then Danielle will finish soldering this at home sometime during the week. It may look familiar to anyone who regularly reads the blog but there’s a difference– this one is more than 50% smaller than the other ones you’ve seen on here in the past. And Cheryl said that you can cut it out in minutes! That’s something everyone likes to hear about a pattern they’re working on.

That wraps up things this week. The addition to the shop has taken a lot of time out of our past 3 weeks but we’re still plowing through work here ourselves. We have 10 name windows almost ready to go along with 15 candle holders and 9 large windows coming up.

See you next week.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

That’s a strange title for a blog entry, huh? Well, if you were here Tuesday night when “The Bertha Butt Boogie” came on and the volume was cranked up you’d understand. I think we were all singing and even dancing a bit while we were working on our projects
Well, our only completed piece this week was done by Julie. She’s got one Kaleidoscope finished and should have 2 others done for next week. Here’s a look at one of 3 Kaleidoscopes:

Gerald has his second panel all soldered and only needs to wash and color this window next week. There’s only one left to go after this one and it’s a bit more complex, but nothing like the first one he made. Look for the finished picture in our next Blog entry along with the picture of his first window in this series which I seem to have forgotten to have posted! Sorry about that, Gerald. 

Janice was in this week but Grace was stuck at home finishing a paper for school. Nonetheless, Janice managed to get a lot accomplished and has the first side of her window about finished. Here’s a closeup of the section you saw last week along with one of the birds. Next week we’ll see a lot of progress on the rear side of this window.

Joey ground, wrapped, tacked and soldered the front side of the last cabinet door this week. We put the brass channel on it before he left so we’ll have it install next week when Russ routes out the cabinet door it fits into. I forgot to get a picture of it before Joey left so I modified the one I took last week to show you what this last panel will look like. It’s a little longer than the others so the pattern has been modified slightly to accommodate the extra length.  Can you see the difference?

Mark cut out a lot of the flower in his window this week. He’s claims to be intimidated by the pieces in it but when I looked at what he’d accomplished on his own 2 hours later I’d have to say that the glass should be afraid of him! He’s having no problems getting through this project and it won’t be long before this one is completed.  I’m thinking that he’ll be grinding this next week.

Mary Lynn started cutting glass for her spiritual window. There are so many colors in it that it’s easy to get confused if you try to pick everything you want out at once so we settled on 4 colors for Mary and Joseph. Now that she has them cut out she can get a feel for what the window is looking like before she picks her next set of colors. It’s looking great already!

Christine has cut all the mirror for her last 5 mirrors.   I think she’s more than ready for a change of pace here so after she gets these soldered she’ll be working on completing a fish window that her sister had started. Look here for the finished picture of these mirrors next week.

And lastly we have Cheryl’s Rooster window. There will be a slight difference in this one from the one that Gerald made a while back along with an addition– this one will have a stained glass name under it when it’s finished. The only thing left to cut on this are the eye’s (I colored them in black in the picture so the poor thing wouldn’t look like it was blind) and the beak. Cheryl is moving quickly on this one. Look for a name under it next week.

Uh, for your information, Bertha had three sisters: Betty Butt, Bella Butt and Bathsheba Butt. (And we’ll leave at at that for this week!)

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

With everyone being productive we have three completed projects to start this weeks Blog post for us.

Jane finished her Iris window while she was at home this past week. She brought it in so we could color it and then take pictures. It looks great and her work, as always, is fantastic. The window is about 3 foot by 3 foot so don’t let the picture fool you into thinking that this was an average sized piece.   We hung it up outside and snapped a few pictures of it for you to see.  After that was finished Jane cut out a Christmas Tree Suncatcher and then decided do another one with the leftover glass at home.

Cheryl has wrapped up all her work on her Magic Wands!  It was a long process but trust me when I say that they only look simple to make.  There is a surprising amount of work in each of these and if you try to rush it you end up with a very rough looking wand rather than the elegant pieces that Cheryl created.  She was worried for a while that they might not get done before the new year but it turns out that she had nothing to worry about. She made 9 wands and this past Tuesday she made the 9 stands to display the and then she washed them and waxed them all so I could take this picture.  There are three missing in the picture below only because the heat of the solder unglued the glass Crystals from 3 of the mountings and we had to epoxy them back into place. I checked on them them yesterday and they’re as solid as can be now.

Joey finished grinding the last cabinet door in his set of 8. It’s the same length as the 5 large doors that he made but it’s only as wide as the 2 small doors that he made.  It looks like he’ll be finished with the last one sometime next week and he can finally move on to something else. All that repetitive work was worth it though, as you can see in this picture of Joey and Cheryl’s kitchen.

Mark Cut up all the pieces of his paper pattern for his next window and then traced out all the green leaves onto the glass. By the end of thenight he’d managed to get all of the leaves cut out and placed on his pattern. He’s a little worried about the size of some of the pieces in the flowers, but there are only a few tricky small pieces so I think he’s going to do just fine. He’s picked a nice dark Maroon color for the flowers that you may just see here next week.

Janice and Grace were going to be working on soldering their window but Grace was saddled with homework which means that Janice was the one who did 95% of the soldering this week. Rather than show you a window covered in chemicals I took a closeup of one of the flowers so you can see how some of the lines have a nice bead on them while others are just tack soldered and therefore flat. Janice did a great job and got really far considering she was working alone this week!

Mary Lynn got to see the pattern for her new window and she must like it because she took the time to trace it out and then cut it up. Here’s a picture of the pattern she’s working on. Expect to see some glass on it next week. I can’t wait to see this one finished. In all my years of working in Stained Glass I’ve yet to see someone do a Spiritual window like this one.

Gerald finished everything but the border on his window this week. It’s tacked and ready for border pieces now so we should see it completely assembled next week. The flowers near the lower left came out looking great if you ask me. I was a little concerned since they were too small to try to give any detail to. Obviously I was worried about nothing. The next panel Gerald does will be more complex than this one but not nearly as complex as the 1st panel in this series.

And that about wraps it up for this week. Come back and visit again to see what happens with our next round of classes.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

Three finished windows and the return of a familiar friendly face gets this posting of our weekly blog started. Brace yourself because here we go!
Mark has reached the end of the road with his Magnolia window. He came in, washed it, colored it and then waxed it so I could take this finished picture of it outside in the sunlight. I said it would look great and I guess I must know my stuff because it certainly does. Moving along down the line Mark has decided to do another flower, but this time it will be a Camelia. We won’t be showing you that one this week because all there is to see is a pattern. Enjoy Mark’s finished Magnolia Window instead!

Fran was hard pressed between doing a 3D Star or starting on one of her Fleur-de-lis Windows. In the end she decided to wrap the bevel of the Fleur-de-lis window at home and to work on the star during class. The fact that she could leave with a finished project in just one class didn’t hurt in her decision either. The stars are easy enough to make once you know the secret. And as you can see, Fran now knows the secret.

Our last finished project this week was done by Joey. I think it’s the 6th cabinet door in his set of 8. Or is it his 7th in a set of 9? I’m actually unsure, but I do know it turned out just as spectacularly as all the others. He also got the soldering on the front of his last small door finished before he left so you’ll see another similar picture next week. After that he has just one medium sized door to go before he moves onto something new (which I think will please him!)

Ellen sneaked out on me this week before I could remember to take a picture of her progress. She’s making the blue-ish Traditional Window and to be perfectly honest, I’m not 100% sure if the last glue chip border was cut or not. Ellen gets an awful lot accomplished on her own so I’m not sure what it looked like when it went out the door! I’m fairly sure she has to wrap the last Glue chip border and then solder this all together. Here’s my interpretation of what she did during class and I’m fairly sure we’ll be seeing this finished real soon now.

Jane got a lot accomplished while at home this week. When she came in and set her window down on the table I thought she had to wrap and tack pieces together, but was I ever surprised when everything was already wrapped and tacked. She cut out the border and threw in a few 2×2 bevels to help spice it up a bit. She got a Zinc channel attached to it and took it home to solder. We’ll hang this up next week and take a finished picture of it then.

Janice and Grace worked on getting their borders cut and attached. Before the end of the night we even got the channel on it. We put eyes in the empty eye sockets of the Cranes which means that they’ve cut and wrapped their last pieces of glass for this window. We’ll see them soldering it over the next 2 weeks or so. Even without solder on it this window looks fantastic already. I like it so much that I may modify the pattern a bit to square it off (and make it easier to transport) and then make it myself.

Gerald got further with his second window. We were unsure of what to do with the flower bed that lies near the bottom left of the window but after looking at a number of paintings we both decided that splotches of color would get the point across. It was easier to experiment on this window because the flower bed is small in it. If it didn’t look good it would bother us too much to through out the pieces and try again with something new. In the center window the flower bed is very large and it lies prominantly in the center of the window. With only the tree and some sky left to cut I think we’ll see this one ready close to completion in 2 weeks.

We had a pleasant surprise this week when a familiar face rejoined us. Julie is back to do a few projects and although she was a bit concerned because she hasn’t cut glass in a while she had nothing to worry about. She cut and ground all the glass for 3 Kaleidoscopes on her first day back. Since this is her first day back  there’s really nothing to look at save for some foiled pieces lying on the table. Rest assured that this will change soon when the wheels are completed. Until then you can look at a previously made kaleidoscope and get the feel for what Julie is making with us.

Lastly, even though Cheryl wasn’t in this week I did some minor touch ups on 3 of her wands and then washed them off. Here’s a look at the three latest in a series of 9! Next week Cheryl will start working on the stands for them.

And that about wraps it up for this week!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

With Halloween landing on a class day we had a small set of classes this week. Nonetheless, we do have 2 finished projects.

Fran was able to complete her Owl Window as we predicted here last week. There’s a spot here and there on this window that she wants to re-adjust so although it’s been completed she may be working on it for another class or two. We’ll find out for sure when she sees the finished version next week. I washed and colored this for her after she left so she hasn’t actually seen this yet!

Mary Lynn completed her Christmas Poinsettia this week while she was at home. We made a few touch ups (I had neglected to show her how to do the edges before she left last week) and then hung it up and snapped this picture. Don’t you think it looks great? Her next project will be a window with a spiritual theme. Look here in a few days to see the pattern.

Janice and Grace got their window all tacked together and then we lifted it up to see what it will look like with light behind it.  You’ll have to take my word for it when I say it looks spectacular because I won’t take a back-lit picture until this window is finished and you can get the full effect!   Below is their window along with the glass they picked for the border colors.  There will be a thin border of pink/green followed by a thicker brown border to finish it all off.

Ellen brought in her pieces all ground and wrapped.  After tacking them together she got all of the center cut, ground and tacked into place.   There are only 8 pieces of glass left to cut before Ellen adds the two borders.  Like the Crane window above, we held this one up to the light and I can’t wait to get a finished picture of this one for you all to see.  Maybe I’m partial to it because blue is my favorite color but I really love everything about this window.

Jane was back with us this week and had almost all of the flowers cut. ground, wrapped and tacked in her Iris window.  She got all the leaves cut out during class and most of the background has been traced out onto clear double-gluechip glass. I wasn’t quick enough to snag a picture before she had everything all boxed up and packed away in the car so she can continue working on it at home so I took a quick picture of the pattern and colored in the flowers that she had finished with a similar color.  The picture you see below is just facsimile of what she really got accomplished but it gets the point across.

 

We missed having Cheryl in this week and we all wish her the very best!  I have my doubts that we’ll be seeing her this week but perhaps we will during the second week in November.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks