Glass and Class

Another weekend has come and gone.  We spent most of it in the pursuit of working on the stained glass lamp we had started last March.  However, the weather was so nice out that we nearly were sidetracked into taking our chainsaws out to the Back Eight to start thinning some of the trees.  Carl went for a walk with me and the dogs on Friday afternoon and while we were out in the white pines we got to thinking how we could go to work right away; we'll just go and grab the chainsaws and get 'er done.  But then we decided we'd better spend the time working on the glass right now, because winter is getting short, too.  

Saturday was a very productive day in our basement studio.  Joel was home for the afternoon and was cutting glass along with Carl.   Ann stopped in for a visit and was running the grinder nonstop, taking off the rough edges. I was working on laying out the patterns for the next repeat at the light table.   The three of us really made a lot of progress.  Dave stopped home for a bit and tuned up our computer and Kayla came down and joined in on cutting glass, too.  The laburnum lamp is a big one, with 1,986 pieces.  That's a lotsa glass to handle.  I won't bore you with the process again, since I've done that in the past, but if you're interested in what goes into the making of a stained glass lamp, here's a link to my earlier post about building the Rosebush lamp last winter:

The Rosebush Shade From Start To Finish

A few weeks before Christmas, I was down in the studio trying to decide what colors would work best for the new shade.  I can be so indecisive when it comes to selecting glass for any project, and will often spend hours just poking around in our stash looking for 'the' right glass.  The Laburnum shade consists of predominately yellow flowers with, of course, green leaves and brown stems.  The background is a very important element in any stained glass piece, too, and I had it narrowed down to two colors. 

  We bought the discarded pattern cabinets from a fabric store and boy, they make great storage for tools and wonderful platforms for the glass grinders. 

This piece of glass would have made a wonderful background for the Laburnum, but it wasn't the one I went with.  I may regret not choosing it, time will tell.  The one I decided to use is much darker with purple highlights.  In upcoming posts, I'll show you the progress so far.

Right now, I have to head for bed.  Tomorrow is Monday (ok, today is Monday, since it's getting really late!) and I have exercise class in the morning. 

We have a wonderful group who attend our exercise class; they are very serious about fitness.  Being surrounded by such a dedicated bunch certainly does help make exercise more fun and the time just flies.  

Here's a look at my exercise class:

My hope is someday I will transform my body, too!