Bayou Salé GlassWorks

It’s been a VERY hectic week here which may explain why I am posting last week’s blog the night before our new set of classes.

Mary Lynn has finished her Spiritual Window and it looks better than I ever thought.  I have to apologies to her because I was hoping to get the faces drawn in during the week but it never happened.  It looks like that will be done Tuesday afternoon before she comes in for evening class.

Janice finished her Layla Ladybug window while at home and all we really needed to do were a few minor touch ups and add some hooks.  Her workmanship, like Mary Lynn’s, has improved so much it isn’t even funny.  I barely had to go over either of their windows!

Our next finished project for this week comes by way of email from Ellen who made this Fleur De Lis Corner Piece while she was at home.  As always, her work is spot on!

Julie finished grinding and wrapping all her pieces this week and then got everything tacked together.  This one will certainly be finished during our next Blog update!

Cheryl was back in this week and stayed pretty quiet in the corner while she and Gerald wrapped their pieces of glass together.  Of course I forgot to take a picture of what she accomplished so I’ll share one of the pictures that I took the week before of her angel with an interesting face painted on it.  Rest assured that it will change when the Angel is completed…

After Gerald finished wrapping the pieces he had cut out he finished cutting out the rest of the tree that runs along the top of his window.  All he has left to go is his house and some pieces of sky and this window will be complete!

Christine picked out a deer pattern for her latest project.  We drew up the pattern from a catalog and then she picked all the glass for it.  It will be ineteresting to see what she walks in the door with tomorrow…

Grace continued cutting away at glass for her Indian Window.  There’s not all that much left to go and to help speed things up she’s taken it home with her to grind what she has already cut.  Maybe it’s me but this window seems to have a lot of depth to it.  It must be the good choice of colors!

Our last window belongs to Jane.  She made terrific progress while at home and all we needed to do when she came in was to decide on two colors for her border.  Looking at the picture I’d say that she chose the correct colors, wouldn’t you?  Look to see this one lit up in our next Blog update!

My apologies for not getting this out quicker– it’s been a very busy week here but we did managed to get 8 windows completed (with 4 of them being about 6 feet by 2 feet).  I just got them washed and waxed today so look for pictures of them here soon.

Janice and Mary Lynn, I have your new patterns almost completely drawn out and will finish them before you get in on Tuesday night!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks 

Ellen wasn’t with us in person this week but through the magic of email she’s managed to make it into the blog anyway! She did this address number project at home and came up with a way to mount it into the ground all on her own. Like always, her work is flawless and the sign looks great. Click the second photo to see what it looks like in a yard.

Janice wrapped the remaining pieces of her project, attached a border and took her Ladybug window home to solder. I remember when it would have taken her 8 weeks to get this window completed and she’ll have it done in less than half that time now. She’ll be picking a new pattern next week when we see this window hanging up completed.  The border color was up in the air until we all saw the orange glass next to the window.  THere was no doubt that Orange was what it needed.

Meanwhile, Mary Lynn finished up the fancy border on her Spiritual window. I steered her wrong by cutting 4 pieces the wrong size last week so we had to remove and then replace them at one point.  Luckily the entire removal process took under one minute to do and allowed us to use squares to make sure her window corners were perfect 90 degree angles so I guess it actually worked out for the best. Mary Lynn will be soldering the back side at home so we should see this finished very soon now.

Gerald got all the pieces wrapped that he had completed last week. Then he moved on to cutting the trees and some of the background. There are only about 30 pieces left to go before he adds the final border (on the top and bottom) of this window so we’ll be seeing the finished in the near future.  I personally can’t wait to see the the 3 windows next to each other so we can see the full effect.

Grace worked on cutting the trees, sky and large wolf head in her Indian scene window. I like the way she made this a darker piece rather than something bright with a sun in the sky– it really gives it a preternatural feel. And it’s fitting together wonderfully so she shouldn’t have to grind very long to get this all together.

When Jane saw the Spiritual scene that Mary Lynn was working on she decided that she wanted to do something similar. She didn’t want to do the same window but rather something in a similar theme. Since Mary Lynn had given me a few pictures to draw a pattern from for her window I just took another picture from the pile  and came up with this pattern that Jane began working on. She had come in on Monday to pick up the pattern so she could trace it out and cut out all the paper pattern pieces while she was at home. When she came in she had her glass pretty much picked out and she began cutting away. By the time she left she had the hardest parts completed. It’s hard to tell in the photo but the face and neck are cut out as well as all the hair. I can only imagine how far along this will be when she comes back in next Tuesday.

It would appear that we have an infectious spiritual feeling around the shop because our next project has a heavenly aspect to it as well. Cheryl had cut out this angel 2 weeks ago but missed class last week due to the fact that she was too busy laughing and having a good time on yet another Cruise. Alas, this week she was sick and therefore she couldn’t make it in. However, since her husband Joey also does stained glass she just sent him in her place and he got all of the angel ground. And let’s not forget that their daughter Danielle also does stained glass. This is a family with glass in their veins! Here’s the angel as it stands today.  It looks great, doesn’t it?  Look for it to be tacked together next week.

I think that covers everyone that was here this week. Julie’s away on vacation and should be back next week along with Christine and Mark. So we’ll have more to show you then!
See you in a week!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

With 2 relatively small classes spread out as far as they could be I seem to have forgotten to do the blog this week! Better late than never though…

Let’s start with Ellen’s latest project– 3 Mardi Gras masks. She cut them out, ground them and wrapped them at home so when she came in all she had to do was add the globs in the upper corners of the masks and then solder them at angles to give them a 3D curve. After they were soldered we added the twisted wire handles and called them finished! I wish you could see just how curved these pieces are so you could REALLY appreciate them.

Gerald said that when he looked at the blog last week he thought that the flowers he had cut out looked lifeless and dead.  So when he came in he set about fixing that by cutting new ones.  Sometimes you can’t really see what your window is shaping up to look like until you get away from it for a day or step back to take in the big picture.  Once he pointed it out to me I have to say that I agree with him.  Gerald also re-trimmed the edge pieces of his window because we had drawn them wider on the pattern so we could make adjustments for a precise fit.   Now that we have the finished size of his first 2 sections we were able to determine just how wide the actual glass had to be.  Don’t his flowers look bright and alive this week? 

While Ellen was working on her masks Julie was busy cutting the remaining pieces to her traditional styled stained glass window.  She not only got it all cut out but she also managed to grind about half of it.  Julie will be tacking this one together soon which means we’ll be able to hold it up and get a good look at it!

When Janice left last week she had cut the top section of her Ladybug window.  When she came back this week she had it all ground, wrapped and ready to be tacked together!  After she tacked it she moved onto cutting out the LAYLA bottom section of her window.  She traced it, cut it and then proceeded to grind most of it as well.  She moves along quickly now that she’s become comfortable with the glass.  Next week well add the borders and start soldering.

Mary Lynn filled in the few missing pieces to her Spiritual Window which included the tricky eye pieces for the two animals.  One that was finished she came up to another big decision– how to do the borders.  After some serious consideration she picked a tricky triple border done with a wide royal blue inner border surrounded by two thin bands of ruby red glass.  These borders sound simple enough to make but there’s a lot of precise measuring to get them spaced correctly since there are red pieces interspersed within the blue section of the border.  This may not make much sense but you’ll see when it’s all together next week.  Mary Lynn has the first two borders cut and ground and took them home to wrap.

Grace picked a great looking Indian themed design for her next project and got her second pattern all traced and cut up.  Next week she’ll trace her pieces out onto the glass and begin cutting glass.

Lastly, we have a finished window  from Tommy who worked on this one at home.  He drew it up the pattern himself and finished it inside of a week.  Tommy is always working on something at home and when we see finished results we’ll be sure to post them here so you can see what he’s doing as well.

We have classes starting up again in just 2 days so check back again to see what’s happening here.

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks

With the holidays falling on class days we’ve had 2 very easy weeks with only a handful of students able to attend. I’m sure things will be back to normal next week though.

Mary Lynn made it in and surprised me by having her window ground wrapped and ready for tacking! There are only about 5 pieces that need to be re-cut to get it to fit together properly and she’ll be adding a border to this next week. She took it home and will be soldering the front side of it there. I can’t wait to see this with the borders on it…

Meanwhile Janice began working on a Ladybug window. The pattern is very light and colorful with some daisies thrown into the background to brighten it up. The name ‘Layla’ will be added to the bottom of the window but Janice will work on the two sections as if they were separate windows and then join them together at the end. She got all the top section cut in one night and has taken it home with her to grind during the week. She worried about cutting glass again since she’s been soldering for the past 5 weeks or so but she cut this out faster than anything else she’s done yet!

Lastly we have a look at the newest window that Julie is making. It’s a very traditional design of a repeated curve which makes a unique pattern when it’s finished. You’ve seen it in countless stained glass windows. It’s usually done in one of two ways: A) All in one color or B) in various textures of clear glass. Julie has opted for the later and got probably half of her window cut out in just this one class. The computer certainly came in handy (as it did with Janice’s window) for picking out the color/texture scheme. Although it will be hard to see what she’s accomplished since you can see through the pieces she’s cut you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say that it’s going to look great when it’s not laying on a table. I forgot to ask if she’ll be finishing the finished lead in black, silver or copper…

That’s it for this week. Look for full classes next week with a lot more pictures!

Paul
Bayou Salé GlassWorks