Picture of New Trial Piece Stained Glass

As promised, a mock up of the trial panel I'm working on. Just some English muffle for the border, some swirled pieces for the background, and a red heart in the middle. I'm not sure it is solid looking enough; a stained glass piece needs some presence and I'm not sure this has it. I'm using odd scraps I have around so I've only a bit invested. Still, I find that working out a design in paper is useful, but at some point, you have to reach for the cutter.

I'm reconsidering the heart- it's not right. This may need a different shape heart, a completely different piece in the center- I'm not sure what.

Designing Small Stained Glass Panel

I've been having so much fun with the small one piece hearts, I thought I'd try to come up with a small panel that uses them.

After playing around , I finally came up with a 7" square panel set on point. For non quilters, that means oriented like a diamond. I've a knobby English Muffle glass in a sherry color as a border, with a champagne colored background and a wine red free hand heart in the center. Since the background and border are regular, I thought I 'd more or less center an irregular heart as the focal point. It keeps the piece from being too static.



I picked warm Fall colors, but the undertones clashed. The orange red heart looks terrible next to the English muffle maroon in the border. Fortunately, the champagne swirls bridge the gap between the 2 colors.





Small panels, ornaments and sun catchers tend to be viewed up close, so the static versus flowing aspects of the design are more noticeable. In a very large piece, the most important consideration is the effect the colors have on surrounding area.

One Piece Glass Heart

I thought I'd post a picture of one of the one-piece hearts. I cut most of the shape out freehand in a sort of ice cream cone shape- pointed at he bottom and rounded at the top. I then cut a concave slice out of the top edge, creating the 2 lobes of the heart. I then grind into the space with a 1/2 inch and a 1/4 inch bit to get the v shape between the lobes.

I've no idea who makes this beautiful deeply rippled glass. I found a scrap of it in the "junque" bin at the Glass Key, my local stained glass store. The ripples are deep enough for me to really embed the wire hanger so I don't need to solder or drill into the piece.

More and More hearts-

It's beginning to look like Valentine's day here! I found a way to make all in one piece glass hearts with wire hooks. It's less work than making the 2 piece ones, so I'm making a batch of those tonight.

All the news that's not fit to print

Slow day- doing last minute taxes, getting bargain shelves at IKEA, the usual errands.
The bargain shelves have a light alread in in them so they uplight anything set on them. It looks like the perfect accessory for out booths, as stained glass panels set on top of these will glow. So not altogether a lost day.

Sold the ACEO from the group below.

This piece of green and streaky glass looked like a giant medusa floating in the sea. So what else could I do but I make but an ACEO with a 3D glass and wire baby jelly fish in front? To my delight, this sold yesterday. This is a nice art form.

Really Really Tiny Hearts

I can resist everything except temptation. So after a binge with an iced coffee and chocolate concoction, I could not sleep. Which is of course the best time to cut and grind glass. So a trio of very small, maybe 3/4 of an inch hearts. Oh and a bit of research into quilt designs for a new piece.
I don't know why I'm thinking of new pieces, I've 3 Baltimore album quilts blocks to finish in glass and a bunch of flower baskets to make.