Mid-Century Modern Inspired (Waste Not, Want Not)

Hi everyone! It was subtly represented to me by another work friend that a piece of stained glass wouldn't go amiss for her upcoming birthday, and who am I to say no?

A sunny day in Scotland?! Somebody take a picture, quick!

I got started on this little piece last weekend and it's almost done - I just need to finish the lead came "frame" around the outsides of the piece.

For the background bits, I used this lovely textured glass that has an opalescent sheen. The circles are all scraps left over from other projects (my Grandma, rest in peace, had a wooden plaque on her kitchen wall that said, "Waste not, want not." I bet she approves.)

Another angle - love the textured glass background bits

The piece feels kind of mid-century modern, which isn't necessarily what I had in mind when I drew the design. But since the mid-century modern aesthetic is one of my favourites, I didn't mind at all.

When I finish this piece, I plan to smooth down the solder on the small circle on the left. That got a little blobby there.

This is the start of an extended glass-making frenzy that I'll be in for the next couple of weekends. I'm going home to America to visit my family and friends very soon, and I want to bring home pieces as presents for at least 5 people, so I've got my work cut out for me. I've got all the designs drawn and the glass bought. Wish me luck! I'll post pictures as I go along.

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Birthday present for a pal

It's a friend's birthday very soon, so I made a quick little piece for her.

I drew the design freehand very quickly, then cut it, foiled it, and soldered it in one Sunday afternoon. The only footnote I can really add is how easy it is to work with the 60/40 solder. Compared to the 50/50 solder I struggled so much with on the squid piece, the 60/40 was an absolute dream to work with. Here's the new piece:

Taken from below, with a little light through it. Not much light, mind you - this is Scotland, after all!

Taken straight on.

The piece is about 8 inches tall and 6 inches wide. It consists almost entirely of scraps left over from other projects.

For how quickly I banged this piece out, I think it's pretty nice. I hope my friend likes it! Pin It Now!

[UPDATED] The Kraken has finally been released, plus some complaints about solder

Hey everyone! I finally finished the squid. I would have done it last weekend, but The Scotsman and I decided to spend the long weekend up in Ullapool, a beautiful little seaside town on the west coast of Scotland. We go up to Ullapool regularly. The first time was on our honeymoon, and we liked it so much that we just keep going back.

Wayyy up there!

One of the main reasons we keep going back to Ullapool is the bed and breakfast where we always stay: The Tamarin Lodge. Folks, if you ever find yourself in Scotland and want a luxurious, modern, clean and reasonably-priced bed and breakfast, this is the place to stay. The breakfast they serve in the morning is a thing of beauty; they have their own flock of chickens, and the eggs are that fresh.

So that's why I slacked off last weekend, despite the fact that my darlin' Scotsman had gone to get me some more solder while he was in Alloa (the nearest place that sells stained glass stuff.)

Now, I have to put in a word about the type of solder The Scotsman got me: unfortunately, I hadn't specified to him what kind of solder I wanted, and he got some bad advice from the store owner. He ended up getting the 50/50 solder instead of the 60/40. The different numbers denote the amount of lead to the amount of tin. 50/50 is half lead, and I found it much harder to work with than the 60/40 (60% tin) I'm used to.

All in all, the 50/50 solder was a real bummer. It bubbled up a lot, leaving pockmarks in the lead bead, and was really hard to get to lie in an even, non-blobby way. It also didn't seem to want to adhere to the copper foil, even though I'd fluxed it very thoroughly. It was not my favourite thing. So, if you're ever wondering which type of solder to get, I'd strongly advise getting the 60/40. Also, I now have a TON of 50/50 solder I don't know what to do with. Wanna buy it?

OK, enough preamble. Here's the finished squid:

(UPDATE: I've added a couple of pictures of the squid taken from outside of the house. I don't know why, but my camera is making the red parts look really, really orange when I take the pictures from inside. I guess I need a photography class too!):

THE KRAKEN HAS BEEN RELEASED!

Unfortunately, as with all stained glass, the picture really doesn't do it justice. The reds in the picture look very orange, but they're a darker red in real life. As you can see, I'm also still having issues with getting anything like a straight edge. But whatever!

Here's one taken from outside:

The red parts are much redder, the light parts are much less yellow, and you can sort of see the mottling in the glass. Stupid camera!

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out, despite the non-straight edges and my troubles with the solder. Here's a detail of the tentacle:

Tentacle action!

One last one, again taken from outside:

Squiiiiiiiiiid!

When you're as new to stained glass making as I am, every new piece is a learning experience. This one was definitely not an exception. I learned a lot on this one, not least because it was a really challenging design. 

To finish the piece, my plan is to go out to the beach, find some driftwood, and make a frame for the squid out of that. I think it'll look pretty cool!

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Out of Solder

Hey there! I bet you were wondering, "Gee, I wonder if she ever finished that squid."

Well, kind of. I got all of the pieces foiled up with copper foil, which, let me tell you, took a long, long time. When you foil your pieces of glass, you have to be really careful to get the piece of glass exactly in the centre of the foil, or it shows through on the other side. Then when you get the foil exactly placed on the glass piece, you have to burnish it down with a fid so that it sticks to the glass properly.

"Fid." I like that word. Here's what a fid looks like:

You burnish the copper foil with the flat bit at the end.

Since this squid piece has like a zillion little pieces of glass to foil, this took me, as I've already said, a long, long time.  But I really love when you get all of the pieces foiled. Each one looks like a little piece of jewellery in a copper setting.

All copper foiled up. 

Ain't it purty?

After that, you paint flux onto the copper and use your soldering iron to (theoretically) run a nice, even seam of lead along the copper bits, soldering the pieces together. In practice, my solder lines are not always as nice and even as I'd like them to be.

All in all, I got about halfway done with the front side of the piece, when I completely ran out of solder.

Looks like I'm going to have to return to the stained glass supply place before I can finally finish this piece. Curses!

Out of solder! Curses!

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Nightmare Squid: in for the long haul

Okay, so I first started writing about the Squid like, two weeks ago, and I am still so not done with it. I spent all day Saturday cutting out all of the little suckers and connecting parts on the tentacle, and after five hours of straight cutting, it still looked like I'd done nothing.

That took you FIVE HOURS??

I was peeved.

Sunday it started taking shape; I'd gotten all of the watery bits cut, but at the last minute the shouty Muse told me in no uncertain terms that the dark blue part was just way too dark.

Shouty Muse: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! THAT'S TOO DARK! TOO BAD I DIDN'T TELL YOU THAT BEFORE YOU STARTED CUTTING IT! HA HA, MY BAD!

So I took out the dark blue pieces I had just spent hours cutting, and my next plan is to use the foamy glass for that section. I hope the Muse doesn't give the thumbs down to that, because people, I'm 'a need to go on another glass run if that's the case.

Shouty Muse: THAT'S SLIGHTLY BETTER, BUT IT LOOKED WAY BETTER IN MY HEAD. YOU SURE DO SUCK AT THIS.

Thomas, the designer where I work, to whom I was relating this glass-related sob story, said: "It sounds like you're making a lot of problems for yourself."

Well, duh! Anyone with the slightest amount of sense would have seen that all those little suckers would be a complete nightmare to cut. But no! The squid has been envisioned by the idiot thug shouty Muse in my head, and so it must exist!

Next up: foiling all of these teeny bits of glass and then soldering it together. Who needs a drink? Pin It Now!

Not dead! Just...squid.

Whoa! I bet you all thought I died or something. So long since my last post! Well, you'll be relieved to hear that reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.

What have I been doing all this time? Glad you asked! One thing I've been doing is working with The Scotsman to clear out our loft/attic so I can have my own work space up there. He then took the top from an unused desk and built me a cutting table that's the perfect height for me. Isn't he awesome? Here's the new cutting table workspace:

The cutting table my husband built for me. It's the perfect height. Goodbye aching back!

He also built me a nice cubby holder for my glass:

The glass holder The Scotsman built for me. Best husband ever!

I love my new workspace! I've gotten my new Cutter's Mate set up now too. I'm still practising with it; it's taking a little getting used to. 

My new Cutter's Mate

I had an idea for a piece last week and got all excited to try and make it a reality. Here's my initial sketch:

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

Yes, it's a squid. Why a squid? Don't ask me. My Muse just kind of springs up and says weird things to me sometimes. This time she said, "SQUID!" and I was like, "Really? A squid?" and she was like, "YES A SQUID. IT WILL BE COOL!" (My Muse is kind of shouty sometimes. I think she has to be to override the noise that's usually going on in my head.)

So, yeah. I'm making a squid. A stained glass squid. I think it's going to be cool, just like my Muse shouted!

This is how far I've gotten on it:

Squiiiiiiiiiiiiid!!

The squid itself is mostly opaque translucent glass, and the water will be clear blues and maybe greens. I'll be using, fittingly enough, what's called "water glass" for the water parts. Water glass has ripples in it, and for some reason I just love it. Pretty much all of my pieces so far have been done with water glass exclusively, so adding in some translucent opaque glass is a bit of a departure for me. But I like it!

The only thing that worries me is that cutting out and fitting together all of those little round suckers on the tentacle is going to be a nightmare. Thanks for the super-difficult-to-cut idea, stupid Muse!

I'll post more pictures when it's done. Hope you're all having a great day!

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A Bunch More Pieces, Merry Christmas!

Hi there, sorry I haven't posted in so long. I've been working hard on lots of glass pieces though, most of which I gave to people for Christmas presents. Here they are:

My Third Piece
The pictured piece is actually my second attempt at making this design. The first attempt came out so badly that I decided to chuck the whole thing and re-do it. In my first attempt, the circular bit was so out of kilter that it just killed the whole thing with its wrongness. Cutting circles freehand is hard!

I got the basic idea for this design while watching a documentary on TV about (of all things) the Kinsey sex researchers. One of the people being interviewed was sitting in front of a pair of stained glass doors that had a design similar to this one, and I re-created a tweaked version of the pattern in Adobe Illustrator to try for myself. I used 1/4 inch rounded lead came. The finished piece was about 28" x 18".

As you can see, the lines still aren't completely straight. Even using a cutting square, my cuts are still not coming out as even and consistent as I'd like.

My husband The Scotsman built a beautiful mahogany frame for the piece, and it made a huge difference in how finished it looked. He used miter joints in the corners, which came out looking fantastic. I gave this piece to my Mom and we hung it horizontally because it fit the window space better.

My Fourth Piece

Next up is the piece I gave to The Scotsman's Mum for Christmas. This was one of my own designs. For this one I used the copper foil technique, and I'm glad to say my soldering skills are getting a lot better. I found that I was having a much easier time and was a lot more confident running the lead bead along the copper foil. Unfortunately, as you can see, my straight edges are still not very straight!

My Fifth Piece
This is another of my own designs. I gave this one to my sister. Still with the problematic non-straight edges!

Sixth Piece
This one was an adaptation of a free pattern I found on the interwebs. I gave it to some family friends.

I made one last Christmas present piece, but unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of it before I gave it away. Curses!

In other news, for Christmas my darling husband gave me a Cutter's Mate, a Circle Pro, and a Beetle Bits cutting system.

Here are the Cutter's Mate and Circle Pro in action:

I am so excited to start using these tools! I think they will help me take my cutting skills to a whole new level.

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season! Here's to a fantastic New Year.

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