In The Beginning

     Yesterday we drove up to Northwest Art Glass in Redmond to buy supplies. For the record, if someone asks me if I would rather go to Disney World or back to the glass warehouse, glass wins hands down!  Isle after isle, rack after rack, with the most gorgeous glass I have ever seen. I had a list of what I needed and Matt, the glass king, made finding everything so easy. In an hour I had piled up 32 sheets of glass, 25 lbs of solder, copper foil, zinc came and a variety of other supplies.
     It's a 3 1/2 hour trip each way.  We were back on the freeway headed home by 1:00 p.m.  And except for that little part where we headed northbound I5 instead of southbound (the sign for Vancouver B.C. was a clue) it was an easy trip.
     I owe a very special thank you to Debbie Patana of Inspirations Glass in Chinook. She made it possible for me to purchase glass at Northwest Art Glass and I am so very grateful. She has been very generous with her time and knowledge as well.
     We were expecting heavy rain this afternoon, so first thing this morning, we unloaded the truck. Every time Ed lifted a piece down to me, I was struck by the beauty of the colors in each one. We stacked them in the garage, as they were too big to go in my glass rack.
     This afternoon I started piecing together the pattern for the Holy Spirit As A Dove window. I usually make my own patterns, but I just couldn't get what I wanted down on paper. Finally I saw a pattern for sale through Gospel Glass that had all the elements I was looking for. Why reinvent the wheel?  I purchased the pattern.
     I use a program called Rapid Resizer to enlarge my patterns. It prints out the pattern to the desired size in tiles, then I tape the tiles together to make the whole. Excluding the borders, the image is 67"x67". I went through four rolls of sticky tape. I print the pattern in mirror image so that when the window is finished, any textured glass will be on the viewing side. The glass is cut on the smoothest side.
     Finally I had the entire image taped together. After that I worked on plotting out the border, which will be the same for all four of the windows.

Step By Step

     When I tried my hand at stained glass eight years ago, I never imagined myself being able to create windows for a church.  Ed taught me that every large project is just a series of small steps.
     J.R.R. Tolkien's Bilbo says it best. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."
     Tomorrow I step onto the road, up to Redmond, WA, to pick up enough glass for the first two of four church windows. I'm excited and more than a little nervous. I want to do it right, and I want to do it with a whole heart.
     Each window unit will have three tall panels. The small square panes above will stay. The completed panels will be inset in the interior over the existing obscure glass windows, and set with stops and quarter round.

Glasgow Rose Transom

  I completed another transom for our home. I promised I wouldn't cover every window in the place with stained glass, a vow I'm having difficulty keeping. But the dining room transom really doesn't provide much of a view.
  I started innocently enough. I wanted a slogan piece for the dining room wall, in keeping with the Arts And Crafts style of the house...something simple and heartfelt. I decided to do a redwork embroidery design, using a pattern adapted from a stained glass pattern book, Sidelights, Fanlights And Transoms (Ed Sibbet Jr/Dover Press) .  When I was done, Ed made a frame and we hung it up.

   It was at that point I began plotting one more stained glass panel for the house. I mean, what's the harm in a transom panel that doesn't obstruct a view? I decided to repeat the same Glasgow Rose design in the panel. The existing transom had divided lights, so I needed to work the design around those. The problem was that the individual lights weren't equal, so each section had to be tweaked just a little bit. Finally I had it dialed in and began cutting glass.

Each of the green vertical rectangle pieces had a clear beveled piece on either side. When all the pieces were cut and on the board, I realized I didn't like those green pieces in there, so I pulled them out and replaced them with another clear beveled piece.
Maybe because the sections weren't completely equal size, but this seemed to be more pleasing to the eye.

    After foiling and soldering, I spent what seemed like hours cleaning the glass. Then Ed very kindly installed it for me. It fits the mood of the house very well. Nice clean lines, not too fussy. This window faces east and the morning sun (when we actually have sun) delivers a lovely bouquet of roses into the dining room.

Get In The Truck Scout

   Last January we received a Duluth Trading Company catalog in the mail. I was glass-struck (which is like dumbstruck but different) with the cover. What a happy dog. Wouldn't he look great in glass?
  So I did a little digging and found the artist. Rick Kollath was very gracious in giving me permission to recreate "Scout" in glass. I saved the email and got distracted by our construction project.
   Now that the house is done and we're in, I finally had time to get back into glass projects. The transom was the first priority, while "Scout" waited patiently.








   Really, once I started, it didn't take long. And sometimes the piece looks better and more clearly defined before it's foiled and soldered. But then it wouldn't hang in a window that way, would it? I'll get a frame built for it to set it off.
   This is one of those things that called to me to be made. I don't have a place for it, nor do I have a yellow labrador.  Hopefully I'll find a good home for "Scout".

The Eagle Has Landed

   Cleaning up after a project always presents a dilemma. Which scrap do I keep and what do I throw away? It kills me to throw any of it away, but what do I do with it? How small is too small? I'm thinking of getting a rock vibrator....like a rock tumbler, but different. I can throw the scrap into it to make nuggets for mosaics. I could also put sand in it with the glass and make beach glass.

 
 Last week, I finished the eagle transom. Ed cut some wood stops to set it in place, and started the installation. I have to admit it made me nervous to have him hammering brads so near to the glass surface. I should know by now that he knows what he's doing.

   We've been building this home for the last two years, and I've had this transom on my mind for longer than that. I was a little nervous that we'd get it up and then wouldn't like it, but I'm happy with it. The front door is on the north side of the house, however, and has a deep front porch. This limits the amount of sunlight that comes through these windows. My original plan was to make coordinated sidelights, but now that the transom is up, I think sidelight stained glass would cut out too much light into the foyer. I'll think about it.

The Glass Diet

   After a very long glass drought, caused by construction and moving, I am finally able to get back at it. I have a whole basket full of ideas for projects. They'll have to wait just a bit longer, because the first project is for the new house.
   I wanted to do a window for the front door transom. We have bald eagles here. No matter how many times I see them, they give me a thrill. I designed the transom and sidelights to include the Columbia River and a GST soaring eagle bevel cluster.
   Our new home has a designated craft room, which is wonderful, but during the final phase of construction it had become the receptacle for every tool, extra plumbing fittings, jars of screws, paint buckets...you get the picture.
   With a look of dread, Ed asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Shopping is not an activity he enjoys.
   "I'd like my craft room." I suggested.  He beamed! That was something he could easily do. It took almost a whole day to move out the tools and construction debris, but it's mine!

   In between errands, Thanksgiving and life in general I managed to get on one more solid day of glass cutting. Since I hadn't done any for a long time, there were a few bandaids associated with the memory curve. The glass for the gray mountains in the background and brown mountains in the foreground is Uroboros granite, which is textured. That means I have to reverse the pattern pieces, trace them with a silver magic marker, and cut them. There may be a better way to do that but I don't know what it is. Uroboros is rich, delicious glass, but it seems to me that it's also grainier, and a bit thicker than some other brands. All that makes it harder for me to cut.

   But I did have a good glass day. When I get in the glass groove, I forget about everything else. The fire dies out, the dog is ignored. I forget to eat, which for me is a big deal. It's all about cutting just one more piece before I stop for the evening. It really does feel good to be back to cutting glass. And now I have a beautiful room to do it in. Once this project is up off the board, we will order stainless steel countertops and I can get organized.

Jasmine and Ivy

 
 Trimming ivy is usually done with clippers. The ivy transom however was about 1.5 inches too long, partly because I didn't realize the window casing wasn't in and partly because I didn't measure it myself. Lessons learned. I wanted to avoid taking the completed work apart, and took a chance in using another method. Ed and I pulled out the trusty tile saw and used a test piece.    Success!
   So with bated breath, we ran the ends of the transom through with an equally satisfactory result. I probably wouldn't use this method with a larger panel, but the cut was only 8" long. By the time we had the cuts complete I was a nervous wreck.

 
 Finally came the moment of truth. We went over to George and Carol's for the installation and a glass or two of wine. Glass first, then wine.
  Carol and I stood down and chewed our fingernails while George and Ed set the window and shot nails into the trim pieces. I have to say...having a nail gun that close to the stained glass window was a scary moment.

 The window fit, the nails missed the glass, so let the celebration begin. Thank you George and Carol for my first commissioned piece.

     Last year while visiting friends in Montana, their little chihuahua, Jasmine, was injured. Sadly, she didn't survive.

    I promised to make a memorial panel for them, but only just finished it recently.  I used black glass nuggets for her eyes and nose, and I made little foil overlays for the toes.  I know Jasmine waits for Dave and Sharon at the gates of heaven.

   We're still working on completing our new home, so I'm not sure what my next glass project will be.