The Other Day at the Arboretum

Happily I spent a little while at the Arboretum last Thursday.  It was one of those beautiful spring days and nature was in her glory!
So I thought I'd share a few photos with you.

Happy spring!

Stained Glass Report

I recently finished my second series of stained glass classes and wanted to share my projects with you.
It had been nearly a year since I had worked with glass, so I picked two relatively simple sun catcher projects to relearn my skills.  They were chosen especially for two friends, and since they have both  been delivered to their respective recipients, I can share them with you now.

 The cardinal went to my friend Nancy in Florida.  I discovered that it isn't really easy to photograph glass, so I have shown it in two different exposures... against the neighbor's garage, facing south, and then against the sky, facing west.

 The sailboat went to my friend, Barb, who this time of year packs away her skis and begins sailing.

 Again, I have used the same two exposures.  The window sill facing my neighbor shows off the semi opaque off white of the sail, but I think the sky shows off the yellow and blue glass better.  Blue is Barb's favorite color, so of course, I had to make the sailboat blue!

Confident that I remembered how to cut glass, grind it to shape, and take a project from idea to finish, I planned a piece for our house.  I looked for a pattern several places without finding anything that felt right to me.  Then at a trip to a local junktique store, I found two lab glass saucers and I decided to design my own piece around them.  I also wanted to incorporate some beveled glass and my instructor had 1 1/2 inch squares available.

This is what I came up with.

I have it propped on the window sill of the glass block privacy window of our bathroom, the most convenient spot to photograph it for now.  The bevels are in the corners and form the center diamond.  The clear glass saucers are foiled with a scalloped foil which snazzes them up a little.  Anyone who has been in my house knows that I like the green, yellow and brown combination.

I plan to hang this in the pass through between the kitchen and the sun room.  Here's the view from the kitchen:

It will have to be suspended about three inches from the top of the frame of the pass through in order to visually "clear" the pendant lamp, I think.

And this is the view from the sun room:

I'll have to have Russ hold it in place so I can visualize it better before I install the hooks.  The design would also look nice hanging vertically somewhere, though I soldered in hanging loops with the idea that it would be hung horizontally.

I enjoyed working with glass again and wish I could continue my classes... however starting this week I will be golfing on Tuesdays when the group meets.