The Bride's Basket Inspired Panel

This as yet unframed piece was inspired by an old quilt patch called Bride's Basket. It's meant to represent a flower and leaves in a small footed basket. I've made some changes to the pattern. Mostly the changes are in using parallelograms or trapezoids for the flower shapes instead of using right triangles as you do in fabric. In fabric the seam line between two same-color triangles visually disappears. Cutting and stitching 2 right triangles into squares is easier than stitching a trapezoid into another piece. You get the dreaded Y shaped seam.

In stained glass though, a Y shaped seam is as easy to insert as a right angle. However, each "seam line" really shows up. So although the final visual effect is the same in a quilters version and ours, we really do have to redraft the quilt patterns for glass use.

Pink Ribbons and Heart Panels

Hope Floats, Hearts Tilt

This week saw a few improvements in technique, some exercises in color choice and a simple repair job.

I did not want to do a pink ribbon. Or a yellow one. Or any other color for that matter. But during a visit to my favorite glass shop, I found this ribbon bevel on sale. Now I've never used bevels before. I've seen too many just gorgeous vestibule and dining room doors in Victorian mansions to attempt a beveled glass anything. I'm intimidated. But at some point , you have to hunker down and do the deed. So this is what I came up with. It's a simple design but a difficult cut. I cut the background out of one piece of pink and yellow streaky stained glass so the ribbon would appear to float in the center. I purposely wrapped the ribbon in thicker foil than the break lines in the pink glass as I wanted the break lines to visually disappear.

I also made another heart in a square panel. This red streaky heart is in a pale champagne background with an olive green border. Again , it's a different color combo than I usually work in . I'm trying to work in Fall hues to expand my color range.

Finally, I repaired a unfinished Bride's Basket panel that was sitting on the table for too long, I repaired the bottom triangle so the that basket sits on glass, not on air.