Sunday, February 22, 2015

Learning a new craft.

For as long as I can remember I have always loved stained glass and have longed to 'have a go'.
One of our contacts in the Farmers Market makes some lovely things with stained glass and talking to his wife last week we found that he also runs two hour work shops, so we signed up.
The work shop was supposed to last two hours, but he is a very patient man and we were there for three hours. The work shop is mainly to give you the feel of working with glass,
Grinding the edges to a smooth finish.  
the correct way of cutting it, the buffering of the sides so there are no sharp edges, then the correct way to apply the copper edging and assembling the item ready for soldering.
Cutting plain window glass is fairly easy, cutting coloured glass is hard, or we found it so, although Rainer made it look easy. I guess it's one of those things that comes with lots of practice.
Buffering the sides was easy as it is a high speed water cooled diamond buffering stone, you can also do  a certain amount of reshaping on this machine.
Copper taping the edges.
Applying the copper tape requires a steady hand and good eyesight , neither of which I have, I found it hard to get the glass edge exactly centred on the tape.
Soldering the bird together.
The soldering part was fairly easy, but both of us have done soldering before although not on glass but on plumbing, where you don't have to be too accurate.
Simon's humming bird.
However, we both finished our first project, with quite a bit of help from Rainer.
My butterfly.
Will we have another go? Yes, I would like to do a stained glass panel for the inner front door, but it will have to wait until  the Autumn , there is too much to do in the garden to take time out for hobbies.
We both enjoyed our introduction and are pleased with what we managed to make. Unfortunately it is not a craft that can easily be done at home, you do need certain equipment which unless you intend to do lots of stained glass work would not justify the cost, so we will content ourselves with the odd workshops.
As calm as a mill pond.
After we had left it was still sunny and felt quite warm, as we crossed over the Boyle river  we stopped to take a few photos,
Lovely light reflections.
 the river was so calm it was like a mill pond
The Boyle river.
and reflected the early evening light beautifully, but just twenty minutes on we found ourselves in a blizzard, the sky turned from pinky blue to steel grey and suddenly we were in a white world. The snow persisted all the way home and we awoke the following morning to a light covering of snow, it seems winter is not done with us yet.
Meanwhile seed planting continues, salad bowl lettuce, calabrese, cauliflower and mange tout peas have been sown in trays and root trainers, these will be grown in the poly tunnel for early crops, the new raised beds are warming under polythene and the first early potatoes, Duke of York and Maris Piper are chitting ready to plant out on St Paddies day.
Colour is now showing on the Daffodils, another week and they will start blooming, colour is also showing on the Camelia bushes, and the primroses are all out. Spring is nearly here.
Shredded branches to use as a mulch.  
A garden shredder, bought two years ago has, at last been tried out, we are very pleased with it and it will shred  dried branches up to an inch with ease. I am hoping we have enough dried branches around to make a worthwhile mulch for the outside strawberries and some other crops.
More hedging bushes have been added to our shelterbelt hedge row, which is half way down the garden field, more Rosa Rugosa which do very well here, plus ten Hornbeam and ten Field Maples, this hedge row will in time give good protection to the vegetable garden as well as attracting the wild birds and the bees.
Pilot cloche project, to see if it withstand the winds. 

20 comments:

  1. Awesome effort guys. This is a craft i would also love to do but put off by the start up cost. I think ill try mosaic first. I love that you are willing to try new things together.

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    1. Two main expenses Lynda, the coloured glass and the grinding/buffering machine, you would need to be sure that you are going to get a lot of use from them. Simon is like me and likes to try new things which is just as well as I no longer drive due to macular degeneration.
      Check out
      Tales from Toriello.blogspot.com
      Luis does the most wonderful mosaic work and also fantastic rush and cane work. It's a blog well worth looking at, they take amazing photos as well.

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    2. On the coloured glass 'expense'. Anne, you already do glass painting. Could you not make the skeleton in clear glass and paint the panels, or would that look a bit sub?

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    3. I have been thing along the same lines Matt, I would paint small pieces of glass first before cutting , then fire them after cutting but before shaping, what I don't know is if the flux would effect the glass paint even though I would fire it first, I'm sure the soldering would not effect it, I don't know exactly what flux contains, it might be an acid, I will have to find out.

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  2. I agree with Lynda - lovely stained glass pieces for first tries. As you say though, a big investment in gear to start out.

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  3. Well done on your stained glass pieces. They look great!

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    1. Thanks Bridget, it was great fun and some of the work he has done in the workshop is amazing but I expect you have seen it all anyway. Hope tomorrow goes well for you.

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  4. Well I wouldn't turn my nose up at your stained glass projects. Well done both!

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    1. Thanks Irene, it was good to find out what is involved, hopefully I will do another workshop in the Autumn for a glass panel.

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  5. What a great idea, both humming bird and butterfly are beautiful! I imagine you have to have a lot of patience and need a lot of practice. Boyle river looks lovely and tranquil, nice photos x

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    1. No so much patience as practice Lauren, and you know what they say about practice.

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  6. What make of a shredder is it Anne? Must get one for all the shrubs I am going to give a good haircut.

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    1. I don't know the make off hand Dave will look tomorrow but we bought it from lidl, it does as good a job as the expensive one that we had in Spain, we have always found that Lidl's tool are good.

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  7. Your efforts at stained glass making are brilliant, I would be more than happy to display either piece. What shredder did you buy? We have wanted one for a while but always wary as some say they are not up to the job. I would be interested to know your thoughts. Thanks

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    1. We bought it from Lidl Ian, it's one of their own brand, as it was two years ago I don't remember how much we paid for it, but it would have been under 250 euros. It is a 2500 w motor, it did the 1 inch dried wood with ease so we are very pleased with it even though it took us so long to take it out of it's box! We are finding it better than the big heavy commercial one that cost a fortune that we had in Spain.

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  8. It's always fun to try something new and your bird and butterfly are brilliant. It sounds like you are ahead of us here, my daffodils are still growing and there's no blooms on my primroses. How lovely to have a polytunnel, it means you can start your growing season much earlier, I haven't sown a thing as yet. Your hedgerow sounds wonderful, I love Rosa Rugosa but it's a bit too rampant for my small garden.

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    1. Our primroses have been out for weeks, I expect the first daffodil to be out on Saturday or maybe Sunday. I would be totally lost without a tunnel but we have been using tunnels for the last thirty years, even in Spain.
      We have just over two acres here, one acre is food production, veg, and livestock, we planted the hedge half way down the plot to help give shelter for the veg garden and also to attract the wild life. Yes, Rosa Rugosa can be rampant but you can keep it pruned to control it, the bees love it in summer and the birds feast on the hips in winter.
      We enjoyed doing the glass workshop, it was something I had always wanted to do even though I do a lot of glass painting.

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  9. I love your cloche! simple idea, I'll be trying it! I have tried to leave comments before, lets see if this one will work! I've been enjoying your blog since I came across it last summer.

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    1. Welcome Kim, I'm glad you enjoy the blog, I will pop over to yours and have a look.

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