Completed Mackintosh Piece

Ta Ta! Finished and done with, the 1920's inspired Glasgow Rose style panel is finished. It's tall and narrow, like a lot of Rennie Mackintosh's work. I finished this off with with one red square in the dark brown border. It just seemed to fit Mackintosh's sensibility- he often used squares and checkerboards in his designs, The off center square of bright red echos the red of the rose. It creates another diagonal line in the design as the eye travels from the square to the rose and to the upper right corner. The wavy clear glass in the background does the same thing, making a very simple , almost childish design have an internal rhythm . I don't claim Mackintosh's sure design sense, but I can borrow some of the elements he worked out in my tribute to his work.

Procratinating on the BAltimore Album, so making a Rennie Macintosh inspired piece

There is nothing like impending disaster to make you rearrange the sock drawer. I'm at that stage now, since I have to have 2 new pieces finished by tomorrow to mail to Di so she can frame them. So what did I do today?

I visited Eastern Market in DC to see if that might be a venue to sell our wares on weekends when I'm not elsewhere. I made a new piece inspired by Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow Rose.

And the unfinished Baltimore Winter piece that is due in the mail tomorrow? It's pretty much where I left it yesterday.

For more about Eastern Market in DC , go to .http://www.easternmarket.net/

For more Rennie Mackintosh Roses go to wikipedia or to this link

http://www.labellestudios.com/auctionimages/pink_mack_rose_web.jpg

Baltimore Album Quilt Inspired Piece Fall Version

Getting ready for the Dulles show, the Northern Virginia Christmas Market in 2 weeks and going crazy. To the left is my newest piece, the second in the Baltimore Album series-Fall. On the right is the closeup of the center. Since this is meant to be a companion piece to the Summer one with the molded red roses I already made, I had to have a 3-D element in this piece too. I made the grapes of glass globs that I ground so they'd fit into each other. I also used the same glass and rough shape for the basket. This insures continuity between the pieces. Unfortunately, the Winter square, currently under design does not lend itself to a basket in the center. So taking a cue from Baltimore quilts, with their wealth of design elements, I drafted a pattern of a wren in a holly spray. I can use the same greens, browns, reds and caramels as in the other pieces, but give the block its own focus.

New Glass Heart Squares

I've been playing with hearts in squares for a few weeks now. The earlier ones looked more Arts and Crafts style, since I used the colors and textures prevalent in1910 pieces. This one, however, with a split back round , looks much more quilty. I put a few of these together to make a glass quilt and it looked really good, Unfortunately, it would be an expensive piece and I need to make some pieces that are less expensive for our next show. Next show in Dulles in Virginia at the Expo Center November 9,10,11.

Back From Ballston Show

Oh Heavy West of Ireland Sigh. I had a great time at the show, but little in sales. Mostly small items to ramblers on their way to pick up a newspaper at the deli. Which is a pity since it really is a nice venue and the people are great. Still, I need to pick up sales, so I may not do this one next year.
On the other hand I met a nice lady who is considering a commission . Shows are often like that- you get a few sales, but something crops up later down the road.

I did sell the blue and yellow sun in orbit/cross piece to a woman giving it to her minister sister for the holidays so that was nice. Also met some wonderful other crafters so that's a positive too.
Check out the jewelry from Just Plain Jane and the t shirts from I Like Seamonsters. http://www.justplainjane.com/
http://www.ilikeseamonsters.com/catalog/

Homage to Baltimore Album Quilts, Summer

Here's a picture of the Summer Baltimore Album. It's warmer and livelier in real life as the red border really glows. In the closeup you can see the swirls in the clear glass background as well as lines in the leaves and the depth to the roses.

Getting Ready for the next show

So it's off to Ballston Arts Show in Ballston Virginai again this Saturday. I did well enough there last time to make the trip worthwhile though I'm seriously considering Thurmont too. Sigh, so many shows , so little time.
Di is making a few new pieces, some more Flying Geese, a new Appalachian Star and in a departure for us, a piece with bevels. I think she is making a convertible on a road, which would be absolutely amazing!
Just finished a new Homage to Baltimore, see the blog from March to see the earlier version. I partially sunk the roses so that they are not as far forward from the design plain. I also omitted the yellow dots. I'm not sure that was an improvement, so I may return them to the design in future. However, the next project is to make a companion piece with a cornucopia . I was originally going to make 3 in this series, but Di suggested I make 4- one for each season. I like the idea so the one here is Summer, with roses in full bloom. The next will be Autumn, with a full cornucopia and fruit, possibly some wheat or corn. Thoughts for winter are easy: Holly leaves and berries , maybe a topiary sort of thing . It's Spring that is causing problems. Since I'm limited to a palate of gold, mid to dark greens and scarlet, with maybe a few touches of another color, I'm finding any thing other than tulips to be a tough design. Most Spring flowers are either clear yellow or purple . I'm sure I'll come up with something

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.

New Studio Space

I've spent the last week fixing the glass studio since I still did not have a place for the glass band saw. I've a soldering stations/layout place, a cutting area and a staging table in between to hold all the stuff that magically gathers on the 2 other tables if I'm not careful.
All that's left to do is to put up some magnetic strips t hold ideas, patterns and other papers and I'm ready to get cracking again!