A Return
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!