Our websites have been repeatedly hacked over the past couple of weeks, so it seems like every time I go to post some pictures we have to fix the website first. Such an annoying waste of time. In any case, here are a few snapshots of my current progress on this project. First I cut the red lines out of each paper piece of the pattern, then I draw the “direction” of the glass that I’m seeking for each piece on the paper. This is helpful when selecting the glass for each piece, since once it’s cut apart from the overall pattern it is hard to tell what directional flow the glass should have. I had to go back and fix the direction I marked on the triangle on the far right below photo as I’ve been tilting those pieces.
The glass I’m using for the white lily petals is highly textured and I tend to cut myself on it a lot, but basically I hand cut each piece as close to the paper pattern piece as I can. I then mark the parts that I need to grind the rest of the way with a sharpie before grinding.
It’s usually easy to grind it down to the desired shape, though today I did manage to cut myself twice. The second cut was on my right thumb and was ouchy enough that I decided to take a break for the day. This happens all the time – I keep a good supply of band-aids on hand. It’s just part of the territory. A few years ago, the owner of the shop where I buy my glass supplies (Mike from Blue Heron Glass) even handed out little packages of band-aids with his store name on them to customers.
I’m running really low on the medium gray (steel blue) glass, so hopefully Mike has placed another order by now. Otherwise I will just have to work around those pieces for awhile.