Monday 8 April 2013

Stained glass finish

OK.

I know this is a stitching blog, but if you had worked on something for as long as this has taken me, you would want to have a teeny tiny 'Ta Da' moment and maybe even a discreet unhurried two-step around the kitchen too.

This is my stained glass panel. I based it on a patchwork quilt pattern.
Maybe 'Flying Geese', may not be!


I am sure passing quilters would know, I knew once, but this (insert swear word) thing has taken so long that I am not sure I have a working brain cell left now.


A closer look.

I did actually crop this to eliminate that white bit at the top which is a piece of frosted glass with light shining through it, but my iPad refused to accept any alterations.

So.....what did I learn from this very long encounter with glass, copper foil, lead and solder?

Cut carefully!!!

That's it really.

Cut carefully.

Then all the little shapes will fit together and you will not have to un-peel all the copper foil you laboriously stuck around each little triangle and you will not have spend hours on a grinder cutting millimetres of glass away.

I did discover that although a millimetre, in itself, is not very big, when you have an extra millimetre on two sides of 160 pieces of glass - that adds up to quite a bit.

Well - enough to make the panel too big to fit the hole for which it was designated.

It fits now.

Because of the afore-mentioned hours spent on the grinder, chewing up my nails, removing small but painful lumps of skin, being splattered by glass-dust laden spray.

Oh yes it fits now.

It is in the shower room.

Where it can be seen at it's very best by male visitors to the loo.

So worth it then.

Bitter and twisted - moi?

Irene xxx

Male visitors - just ignore the panel and concentrate on your aim - that's all I'm saying.