Dichroic glass

Wonderful mum found a new craft class venue, between both of our houses in West Bridgford, Nottingham, a little town with great cafes for a coffee or afternoon tea after a day's workshop.  The classes are held in a beautiful little handmade shop - Locally Produced for You.  The tutor was Katherine from number8glass.

We went to a dichroic glass workshop.  I've worked with glass before, but not dichroic glass.  I'm not really sure what dichroic glass is, other than it's pretty, sparkly glass!

Above are the before photos.  The tutor had lots of squares and rectangles of glass.  She would then cut the dichroic pieces to the size and shape we wanted, or round the edges by nibbling at them with grozier pliers.  Once she found out I just to do glass work and have even made a stained glass window, she passed the cutting mat and cutter over and told me I had to cut my own!  I'm pleased to say I hadn't forgotten what to do.

The top one is a square of black glass with three pieces of dichroic glass on top, and three glass rods on the top right.  The bottom one is a square of white glass with a square of green dichroic and a square of flowery dichroic, then I added some green frit on the left hand side.  

I love the black line around the green glass which is just what happens with this kind of glass.  Oh, I should probably say that the picture above and the one below show the two pieces after they'd been fired in the kiln.  The green frit didn't come out too well.

I really like this one, it's very rounded and tactile.  The photos don't really do them justice, they are so hard to capture due to the sparkle.

This one is a brooch.  I used blue glass in two shades.  The lighter blue one has some silver confetti on top, and that's sandwiched in with a piece of clear glass.  

I like the way this one came out too.  It's certainly very unusual!

Finally, this one is a piece of black glass and a piece of white glass sitting on a white base.  I used a piece of dichroic (it's clear with holographic squares on it) on the top.

We had a brilliant day.  I really enjoyed playing with the glass and designing pieces of jewellery.  I really do have to get myself a kiln at some point!

A "thing"

When I made my fused glass monster aliens for my brother, I was told off for not showing a before shot!  I forget sometimes that this might be interesting for other people, I kind of assume you all know how to fuse glass, but whilst some of you do, this is a brand new process for others.  So, the Wednesday before last I took some photos of the piece I made before it went in the kiln.

There are two types of glass we use in our classes.  Fusible glass can be put into a kiln and will melt and fuse to itself, creating lovely rounded edges.  Non-fusible glass is used for leading work or copper foiling.  I wanted to use up some of the fusible glass I have so I chose a large piece and cut a square, then just began layering other colours and transparent glass on top.

So above is how it looked before it went in the kiln and below is after the kiln.

This photo is taken on a white piece of paper and makes the colours look quite thick and very blue.  It's so hard to photograph things like this, especially when, like me, you're rubbish at taking photos.

I held it up to the light.  This shows it off a bit better, but it's still not a great representation.

I'm sure you're all now wondering "what is it?".  It's a .... thing.  Yes, one of those ... things.

fused glass monster aliens

Monster aliens or alien monsters, I'm not really sure which.

A couple of weeks ago I had a transport issue - I have to take Mr CA's car to glass class as a window just does not fit in the boot of a mini (not much does!).  Unfortunately, he was parked on the next street, his boot was full and I was late. 

Result?

Alien monsters.   It was good timing as I didn't have a birthday present for my brother and so thought I'd make him something.  Yes, he will be 38.  Yes, he'll love these alien monsters!

This is fused glass.  It's a specific type of glass with a certain melting point.  I cut the pieces out individually and placed them on clear glass.  They went in the kiln and the following week they were ready.  They are dimensional and very tactile.

I sketched each one and then just started cutting.  It was fun as it makes a change from the precise work I'm doing with the window, the edges can be rough as they just melt anyway and flow into the glass below.

One thing I haven't missed whilst working on the window and using the bandsaw and grinder is cutting myself.  My hands were like ribbons when I left.  At one point I got a small shard in my finger, I could see it sticking out but could do nothing about it as I nearly passed out.  Yep, I'm a wimp and no, I have never given birth!  My teacher and one of my friends had to rescue me.

It was an uncomfortable drive home, a tiny shard had fallen down my top and was sticking in my stomach!

Glass Class update

Good morning.  I'm up bright and early this morning, not through choice, but because my stepdaughter requested that I pick her up so she could talk to me about boys!

I haven't shown you a glass update for a while, I missed a class through migraine, then I just got too busy, but all the glass fusing is done now so it seems a good time to show you.

I've shown you the rose before, but here's a little reminder in case you weren't paying attention!

Above is the stem, three leaves and the square.  I mentioned in my last glass post that the tutor had accidentally slumped my square, then I didn't explain what I meant, just assuming you all know what that means.  You can create glass bowls by placing your piece on top of a form which is shaped like a bowl.  As it gets hot in the kiln, the glass slumps down into the mould and takes on its shape.

I love the texture on the leaves.  For glass fusing you start with a base shape of clear glass.  You then add your coloured glass on top.  I left a gap round the edge as these pieces will be encased in the lead strips to form the window.  I also left a gap in the middle as I like the effect.  I hope you can make it out in the picture above.  Fused glass is very tactile, it's smooth and rounded at the edges.

You can see above where the pieces fit onto my pattern.  The stem is made up of three fused sections.  The top and bottom sections are similar to the leaves, the middle section is made up of small squares of glass.  My colours aren't great in the above photo, it all looks a bit dull and flat, but it's actually more vibrant than that.

Now the fusing is done, I've started the long task of cutting the stained glass for the background.  This won't be fused, but will be leaded to join the parts together.  We only have 1 class left before the end of term, then there's no more classes until September.  I've ordered a glass cutter and some pliers and I've picked out some pieces of glass so I can get the cutting done over the summer. 

I'm afraid you'll have a long wait until you see the next step which is the leading!

I'm going to spend a couple of hours catching up on my blogging, then I think I'll spend the rest of the day sewing.  I have a Zakka Style project to do and I agreed to be a pattern tester for a bloggy friend - it's due to be finished tomorrow but I'm really not sure if I'll get to it.

Hopefully bloggy service will now be resumed, but please feel free to link up your LANT projects in the meantime in case I run out of things to blog about!!
Oh, I saw that one of my projects had been pinned, it was my post about Ungar and the pinner had commented that my blog also has really cute pictures of real life bunnies.  I thought I'd better live up to that.

Here are Colin and Ellis, contemplating going upstairs, but not sure if they have the energy!

And here are Harry and Tiff, wondering why a massive bag of rabbit poo is sitting outside their hutch...

Don't forget to enter my Something Old, Something New competition.  The deadline is 31st July and there is a prize!

An update on my glass panel

Good morning!  Only one day of work to get through then I have 4 days free!  You've got to love a bonus bank holiday, especially in this country where they are really stingy with bank holidays.  I plan on getting my Zakka Style SAL bag finished, I'm almost there, or I would be if I didn't keep making changes!

I've dropped in today to show you some progress shots of my glass window panel.  If you want to see the beginnings of this projects, the design can be found here.  I plan on blogging about it regularly so you, and I , can see it take shape.

Before I went to Tunisia, I cut out the pieces for the rose, you can also see my design and the pieces I'd cut for the geometric corner square at the back. 

I cut out a base piece in clear glass to provide a foundation, then I cut the rose in two colours.  They were glued onto the base glass to hold their position, leaving a bit of a gap between the joining parts.  They were fired whilst I was away and on Wednesday I collected this.

Here she is all fused up.  I've just realised this is a bad photo.  You can see my sharpie lines below the glass and it looks like it's on the glass!  Ooops, I'll take another one next time!

I did a lot of grinding on Wednesday, these little squares were quite badly cut!  I also spent quite a bit of time playing jigsaw to get them in position! They're now waiting to be fired.

Along with these leaves.  The geometric squares all touch to provide a clean piece of glass, the leaves will be done as the rose was, leaving a gap between the touching pieces to provide a more bumpy, organic texture.  Wooh, listen to me "organic texture", getting a bit above my station there I think!

This final picture shows some cutting work I'm now doing.  The stem will be made up of three pieces of fused glass, the outer sections are in the two shades of green, the inner section is a grid of different colours.  I suspect I'll be cutting quite a few of these as I'm not sure of my arrangement.

Right then ladies, I'll be back at the weekend to show you my Zakka Style bag.  Here's hoping it's a warm, dry weekend, but not too hot as I feel guilty sitting inside sewing when it's hot outside, despite the fact I can't bear the heat and my milk-white skin doesn't like it either!  Have a lovely weekend everyone.

A story with a sad ending - part 2

Good afternoon ladies.  Well, I seem to have eaten my own bodyweight in food this weekend.  Ooops...  I should probably go and do some exercise to burn it of... or I could sit here looking at blogs and eating chocolate.  What do you say?  Yes, you're right, it is Sunday evening and clearly the best course of action is to carry on eating so my body won't think that I'm starving and start conserving the pounds.  Let the eating continue!

Anyway, what did I come over here to write about, I don't think it was my flabby bum... Oh yes, that was it, glass.  So, this Wednesday will be week 4 of my glass class.  I showed you my design for the panel above my door, well I started working on it last week.  I cut some base glass for the fusing and started cutting the coloured glass but, apart from cutting myself twice in almost the same place and not even noticing, I didn't get much done.  I was going to take photos for you but it's just pieces of glass and I didn't think you would be interested. 

I thought you might be interested in seeing what I did in my first week though?  I made a fused glass bowl by layering smashed pieces of blue and purple glass on a white base piece and putting it into a round form before putting it in the kiln.  I collected it on Wednesday...

... and dropped it on the floor last night.  Before I'd even photographed it.  Remember Mr CA dropped my copper foiled suncatcher?  Not having much luck am I?  I'm starting to think it doesn't look good for my rather large, time and effort-intensive door panel.

Ah well, in for a penny... thought you might like to see the smashed suncatcher too:

Right, I'm off to cry in a corner, speak to you in the week.