Right On Track

After fighting the snow for two weeks, things are going back their their rainy normalness. Thank goodness!

I managed to get the train soldered before Christmas company.I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'll get it in the mail this week. The photo is up against a window, with lots of snow outside, so the white wispy for that first plume of smoke and the clear globs for the lights show up white. My guess is, I'll make this one again and put it in the local craft store.

Next is the Raven Steals the Sun. I'm pretty excited about that one!

Yule Never Know Until You Try

At the last minute, I heard about a local craft show. I thought..well why not. I may not sell a thing, but I'll be participating. It's a very small community and if folks don't participate, it doesn't happen. There were about 9 vendors. The economy here has been worse than many areas. Lumber prices are down, and the local logging firm just shut down for several months. Salmon fishing has been restricted. That pretty much puts a chokehold on the local economy. Many folks come out just for something to do. The weather was predicted to be awful and it was that in full force. Did I mention there was no heat in the hall where we were? It was a bit nippy.

I quickly made a bunch of little stained glass Christmas Tree ornaments, two painted candles, a few painted glass ball ornaments. I also took three of my medium sized stained glass panels. I didn't expect to sell any, but it was interesting to watch folks as they looked at the stuff. Never having done a craft show, it was all a new experience. The experienced crafters there were very encouraging. I don't know that I'd do it all that often, but it was fun to try. I sold three stained glass ornaments, which is about as good as anyone else did.

I'll be starting the stained glass train next week. It's been snowing here all week, and I've been doing the Christmas baking and jam making. 10 pts of strawberry and 10 pts of raspberry. Yum. Next is pecan brittle and cookies!

On The Right Track

I've been looking at a gazillion train pictures. Steam trains, skunk trains, narrow guage trains, diesel trains, bullet trains. I even found some very cool stained glass trains. I contacted Steph Harper from Harper stained glass http://www.harperstainedglass.com/ to see if she sells her patterns because I really really liked her trains. But at this point, they're not available. Rats! If they become available and I can afford them, I'd still buy them in a heartbeat.
I went back to the photos and narrowed it down to two, and tried to make patterns from both. One is much more complicated and would have over 200 pieces, and the second would have about 85. Guess which one I picked.

Yeah...I'm a wimp. I'll go with the train on the trestle. I'm not sure what glass I'll use. Straight black won't let any light through. I go to the glass store tomorrow and I'll see what my options are.