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.

Last of the ACEO's

I swear these are the last I will make for a while- well except for the ones on the soldering table board.

It's beginging to look a lot like

Okay, it's not even the end of Summer yet and I'm singing Christmas carols. It's the same every year. Of course every year the mad dash of Back to School, Halloween, Thanksgiving, St Nick and Christmas gets busier, so I try to get the small annoying stuff out of the way first. I've already collected some of the stocking stuffers and the St Nick candy. I figure I'm not the only one preparing ahead so I can enjoy holidays with my family rather than running through the mall, so I just posted this wreath on ETSY. I based this design is based on Tumbling Blocks, a quilt pattern that gives either a 3 D effect or a floral effect depending on the orientation of the diamonds and the color scheme. Here, the three stars are poinsettias and the other red diamonds are buds.

I originally designed this for my mother-in-law who moved to Georgia after a lifetime in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. She took her collection of family quilts with her. I made this to remind her of the quilts and the darker, more intense colors of Christmas in Pittsburgh, while taking advantage of Savannah glorious sunny weather in December.

Annapolis Galleries

I had a few hours to day, so I grabbed the smaller and brighter pieces for a trip to Annapolis, MD. There's an slew of galleries there and I thought I'd try my luck with the owners to see if they'd like to carry some of our wares. After all, we're Maryland based, have a recognizable product line, do it well and generally, we're pretty spiff!
I trolled through the streets with my daughter- Might as well make this a family event- checking out the stock and looking to see if the shop's merchandise was compatible with ;my own. I had a really large purse, sufficient to carry a couple of pieces of glass, brochures, cards and a catalog. Okay, it is a large purse.
I'm not sure how successful I was, since I didn't sign up a gallery. But I did leave cards, and if not this season, perhaps we can get a venue for the next.
Here's a partial list of the galleries in Annapolis. It's a neat town, very art-y
http://www.artinannapolis.com/

Tonight's work in progress

I got into Ballston Art Market, a juried show I've never been in,. It's great news but that does mean I have to get cracking on new pieces or it will be a very small display at the booth. I like the red and white Lemoyne star at left, but am not as sure about finishing the all blue one. In natural light, the pale blue points are really pale, maybe too much so for the mid blues in the piece. I thi nk I like the red , white and blue one because the contrast between the red and white points makes the star look as if 2 individual stars are spinning around each other. The all blue star in contrast, is more visually static.

I trolled the web earlier and found this great and surprising source of inspiration

http://www.historic-american.com/index.html. This is a web store selling antique quilts. Since these are for sale, there are a lot of close ups of pattern and quilt details.