Out of The Blue

Soon after I posted The Wedding Gift, I received an e-mail from a gal who had picked up my card on a home tour in our city last year.   The e-mail inquired if I was still available for glass work, as her home is going to be on this year's tour, and they have an octogan shaped window they wanted to have stained glass put into.  How exciting!!

Of course I responded I was definitly still doing glass and would love to meet with her and go over what she might want in it. 

The new client needs the window completed so it can be installed in time for her tour, which is the end of this month.  Unfortunately, this did bump the wedding gift a bit.  The only saving thing is that the bride never knew I was making her a window, so we chose a smaller item from her registry, and told her something else would be coming as well.  I have most of it already cut out, except for the leaves and the pieces surrounding the heart.  It will be pretty, and, I know she will love it.

The new client chose a jumping dolphin pattern, but I had to change it up quite a bit from the original, simply due to the size of the pieces -- they were simply too big once the pattern was enlarged.  Last week, we met, she loved the design and the color choices of glass. I double checked the template I made of her actual window, and I now have more than half of it cut out!  Yes, I am building it to fit the template, so I know it will fit. 

I really must get in there and cut, cut cut!!  I will for sure post some pics of the finished project.  Wish me luck that all my scores and breaks are right on.... :)

The Wedding Gift

I have started a new project -- a rather traditional type panel as a wedding gift.  I poured through all my pattern books, which is quite typical of me.  My daughter likes to tease me about this quirk of mine..... I have a need to look through every single pattern book I own before I can decide. Yes, it hit me when I saw it, that it was just what I was looking for!  It's a pattern by Ed Sibbett, Jr., from his Ornamental Flower Stained Glass Pattern Book.  Both my daughter and my daughter-in-law told me, at different times mind you, that it reminded them of the Beauty And The Beast rose.  It wasn't planned, but yes the bride is a real beauty. Her husband-to-be, though, is not beastly by any means, lol, but I hope they will like it. 

The design is a single stemmed rose with leaves, inside a heart, which is framed by smaller squares, which make up a 14" square.   Hard to describe -- you'll just have to have a look for yourself!

 Of course, I also had to research the meanings of every rose color known to man!  Hmmm....a white rose signifies purity and honor, so much a part of wedding cermonies, and red roses, well, we all know they signify  l-o-v-e and p-a-s-s-i-o-n!!  Well, love & passion won, so I've chosen two reds for the flower, but I am just not certain how it will look once the light shines through it.  One is a deep, translucent, darker shade of Spectrum's red Artique.  I LOVE this type of glass, the way the little variances in it catch the light.  The other is a red wispy, also by Spectrum, but it has a look of light falling onto the petals, although it's a bit heavier looking.  I've been mindful of how a real rose might look, with a bit of sun-light on it.  I will need to lay it all out on my light-box to see if the two shades work together ok.

I've chosen single glue-chip for the glass surrounding the rose that forms the heart-shape.  This will help the rose stand out more, but will perhaps give it a somewhat more romantic, old-fashioned look.  This glass is usually good for backgrounds, and what I really like is that it is very pretty, and super easy to cut! 

For the square shapes surrounding the heart, I remain undecided.  Tentatively, I have pulled out some clear textured iridescent glass from my stock that would give a little sparkle to it, but I am just not sure.  I may want something a bit heavier, with more color here.  I think a trip to the glass shop this Friday is in order.  Plus, I only have one shade of green for the leaves, and I always like to mix my greens when possible. As you can see, I really don't need much of an excuse to visit the glass shop!!

The funny thing about all this is, I have glass on order (also expected to be delivered on Friday)  for this very project, but I just decided to begin with what I had on hand to see if I might like it.  So far, I do!  The glass I have on order that I originally envisioned for the rose is Peppermint Pink Baroque, which is a very beautiful, textured, swirly glass, with lots of movement.  I admit, I wanted to try and combine the red & white color meanings of the roses.  ♥

Unless I am totally thrilled with the first one, I may build two of these, both different, and give the one I like best as the wedding gift.  Perhaps the other will end up in my ETSY shop.  I'll be sure and post pics when I have them ready.

Red Dragon....Fly

I had a lot of fun with this project.  It's very simple, not too many pieces, and I had it cut out rather quickly.  The only problem was trying to decide the colors!

I knew I wanted to use a glass nugget for the head, so that, of course, narrowed it down to the colors I had on hand.  Red was the last one I considered, and when I placed it next to the other colors, I loved it!

But a RED dragonfly?

Why not?

I cut the wings out first, and barely, just barely had enough of the wing glass.  These pictures don't do it justice, but the wings are iridescent.



The background glass is blue/green water glass, one of my favorites!

I had it ready for soldering for some time, then finally got that done, and it took me another couple of weeks to get the border around it.  Thank goodness for colder, windy days, like today.