Friday:
Friday:
Lunch with K. at Subway
Harmony Stained Glass for some glass for the two aikido projects
Saturday:
Bank for checks and safety deposit box
Mowed the bits of the lawn K. left for me
Got bit by a snake
Texas Art Supply for tape
Dinner at El Centinela's with K.
Academy for shoes
Fry's for electronics stuff
Sunday:
Matting of artwork
Monday:
Jalapeno bread
Blackberry cobbler
Mom and in-laws over for dinner
Baseball
Friday:
X-Men: Apocalypse
Lunch at Steak and Shake
Stained glass work
Saturday:
Car inspected
Truck washed
Picked up dog food
Called GoDaddy about cron jobs not working
Did work on the ArmadilloCon Art Show
Sunday:
Did some work on matting the artwork needing framing
"Blackberry Dream" - angel food cake and buttercream icing with blackberries.
I was just minding my own business one day, out in the shop, probably working on some pens, when my mind wandered to the light side of the Force. I was near my stained glass table and I thought about doing some Star Wars stained glass. I went inside and did some searching for Star Wars images. The two that popped out at me were the logos for the Galactic Empire and for the Rebel Alliance. After much deliberation, the Rebel Alliance logo seemed to be the way to go: I could get away with many fewer pieces fo glass to cut.
I'm making it my item of the week on artfire. Contact me for 10% off:
Here it is:
Friday:
No aikido. It was to have been just Sensei and I and, since Sensei is not supposed to be on the mat, we called it off. I spent the evening cooking and prepping for the trip to the reunion.
Saturday:
Up bright and early (4:45 a.m.) to go to New Corn Hill for the 20th reunion of my great grandparents family. We left at 6 a.m. and made it to the church hall shortly after 9 a.m. (1 hour quicker than google maps said). 8 hours of meeting, greeting and eating. A great time!
The stained glass panels (Czech flag and Texas flag) I made did ok in the silent auction. They didn't make back their glass costs, but that's ok. The goal was to offset the cost and they did a good job toward that goal. The Texas flag was the item that sold for the most amount of money in the auction.
A jar of pickles had the most bids in the auction: 14. Final bid on the pickles (made by an uncle Joe Fojtik) was $16.
I was outbid on most items I wanted: banana bread, pickles, poppyseed cookies, among others.
Sunday:
Got out to meet my college roommate and his wife for brunch. They were in town on a stop of their weeklong tour of Texas. We got to catch up on some stuff that they'd been doing since we last met.
K and I then went to my mom's, prior to heading into town to see the HMNS's exhibit: "Terra Cotta Warriors." It was a nice exhibit. I was impressed at how tall the statues were. It looked like they were about 5'9." Which, I thought, seemed a bit tall for that long ago.
We then hit Star Pizza for dinner and then went home.
I am so looking forward to a 3-day weekend.
Here is the Texas flag stained glass piece I just completed. Actual size is about 13"x20".
Here is the Czech flag stained glass piece I just finished. Actual size is about 13"x20"
The zinc border I have is old, crooked and requires lots of elbow grease before it can be used. So, I'm going to get some new zinc over the weekend and finish up the projects.
Here are the states of the projects:
Texas
Done - Design the pattern
Done - Cut out the pattern pieces
Done - Cut out the glass pieces
Done - Grind the glass pieces smooth
Done - Foil the glass pieces
Done - Solder the pieces
Done - Solder the zinc border
TBD - Patina the entire thing
Czech
Done - Design the pattern
Done - Cut out the pattern pieces
Done - Cut out the glass pieces
Done - Grind the glass pieces smooth
Done - Foil the glass pieces
Done - Solder the pieces
TBD - Solder the zinc border
TBD - Patina the entire thing
I've got a family reunion coming up in a few weeks. One of the things we do, to pay for the hall and other expenses, is hold a silent auction. There are usually canned goods from gardens and various other items. I usually put in a pen or bottle stopper that I've turned on the lathe.
This year, I think I'll put in a bottle stopper, a box I've recently made, and two stained glass pieces. One will be a Texas state flag and the other will be the Czech flag.
Here are the states of the projects
Texas
Done - Design the pattern
Done - Cut out the pattern pieces
Done - Cut out the glass pieces
Done - Grind the glass pieces smooth
Done - Foil the glass pieces
TBD - Solder the pieces
TBD - Solder the zinc border
TBD - Patina the entire thing
Czech
Done - Design the pattern
Done - Cut out the pattern pieces
Done - Cut out the glass pieces
Done - Grind the glass pieces smooth
TBD - Foil the glass pieces
TBD - Solder the pieces
TBD - Solder the zinc border
TBD - Patina the entire thing
I should be able to get both pieces soldered tonight. If that happens, I might be able to do the patina as well.
I hope they generate interest in the silent auction, they've got about $70 worth of glass in each of them. I'll post pictures when they're done.
Friday: aikido
Saturday:
Spent some time working on the plumbing for the sump. Did some test fitting in the house and some PVC gluing.
Aikido
Picked up some glass for some stained glass panels to be sold at the silent auction of the approaching family reunion.
Visited a friend who had just given birth to a baby boy.
Dinner at Durango's
Sunday:
Filled up the sump with water and did some tests. Managed to get the skimmer loop plumbing running. I need to get a flow control valve for the circulation loop.
Watched the NBA Finals.
The project is finished. I finished it last weekend, finally putting the patina on. I'm 95% pleased with it. I should have put a little more thought into some of the colors to achieve a little more depth. but, I am pleased with it.
I'm putting up the pattern I created to make it. The picture of the pattern is horrible, I just had it laying on my desk so the lines are not straight. The final piece will be displayed once it's in Melanie's hands.
7.5 of the 8 steps are complete.
All of the foiling is done. Half of the soldering is done. I ran out of solder, or I would have finished that completely.
Today was Easter, so no places were open to get the solder. Tomorrow's Monday, the day the supply shop is usually closed. I'll stop by and get solder on Tuesday, but I've got volleyball Tuesday night, so I likely won't have any time to work on it.
Maybe Wednesday will have this project complete. Then I have to figure out when to drive it up to Dallas.
6.5 of the 8 steps are complete.
All of the grinding is done. Half of the foiling is done. I might finish the foiling tonight. 50+ grapes are left to foil.
Soldering is next on the list.
Maybe I ought to add two more steps: cleaning and putting on the patina.
Nah, not now. Maybe for future projects.
I did more cutting over the weekend. All I have left to cut are 54 grapes. That'll probably take me an hour or so and then it's off to the grinder.
We're trying to figure out a way to keep all of the grapes organized once the pattern pieces have been removed from them. This is the time when I'm foiling them. I do label all of the pieces with a Sharpie, but sometimes the ink gets rubbed off. We'll probably go with small bins for each set of 5 grapes or something similar.
I've just started working on a stained glass project as a house warming gift for a friend. I kind of promised it would be ready by next weekend. Given that I just started it this past week, that's not going to happen. I've got just two of the seven steps done necessary to complete the piece.
Design the pattern
Cut out the pattern pieces
Cut out the glass pieces
Grind the glass pieces smooth
Foil the glass pieces
Solder the pieces
Patina the entire thing
This work has 5 types of glass being used. One each for sky, vine, grapes, earth and leaves. I've cut out the glass for the sky. The earth is ready to cut out. Vine and leaves will be next. I'm saving the grapes for last because they will be unpleasant. There are about 65 of them.
During the design process, K. recommended that the grapes be bigger and fill up more of the design. I agreed. Without the change, the grapes would have been much smaller and more tedious to cut out.
I hope this design works. It may be the first one I've done entirely from scratch. I think it is. Past ones may have merged existing designs, but this is the first one I've done from sketch to final product.
I'll probably post the design at some point.
Friday:
aikido
Saturday:
Worked on a stained glass piece that I've promised a friend. I came up with the design, ran it by K. and some folks at the library. Modified the design based on their input and did a final prep of the design. Picked out the glass. I hope I don't mess up too many pieces during the cutting stage, some of the glass is limited in quantity in my supplies.
Wandered in our "orchard" to check out the plants. If half of the blooms on the one blood orange that's blooming produce, we're going to be overwhelmed next February.
aikido
Dinner with K. at Durango's.
Sunday
Woke up at 7am with some muscle issues. I had to take some ibuprofen to get back to sleep. That's the first time thats ever happened to me. It was very weird.
Tried to get some ideas for some sump issues at BAA, but the main guy was not there.
Made the copies of the stained glass design needed for the project.
Stopped by HD and picked up some epoxy to fill some spots on a box project and a seed starter.
Cut out the pattern pieces for the stained glass project.
Dinner and cards with the in-laws.
The cabinet carcasses have been installed. Finally.
There were some alignment hassles, but not many. My in-laws, whose apartment shares a wall with the shop, thought I was messing around in the ceiling with all of my banging. I used a tool of persuasion to get some final adjustments. It ended up pretty level.
Next step is the face frame. Then the 2x4 frame for the countertops, plywood on top of that and then hardboard on top of that.
I had to do a bunch of rearrangement of the shop to create space to move everything in position. I've reached the point where the mobile light table/ stained glass workbench is taking up too much room.
I've got to get rid of it. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and head into town to put up a flyer at stained glass studios. craigslist has not worked yet.
Got into the shop for a couple of hours last night. It was nice and hot. That's gonna give me motivation to get the dog screen for the unfenced shop door built.
Managed to get the light box insert (for use while doing stained glass work) built for the set of cabinets in which it will reside. Looks like this weekend's goal will be to get it wired up.
I've got aikido, mowing and Mother's Day to deal with, so no telling if I'll get some shop time.
Let's see.
Aikido on Friday and Saturday.
Shoveling dirt for the vegetable garden Saturday morning. Vegetable mix is a lot tougher to shovel than sand for some reason. I need to get a yard of pine bark mulch for the blueberries as soon as the ground is hard enough for me to drive the truck out to the bushes.
Saturday evening: dinner with a friend at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Then we went out and did some washing machine shopping with her. Hers had just given up the ghost.
Sunday: work out in the shop getting the shelves for the glass used in stained glass creation made. Also looked at replacing the casters for the lathe stand. Took off the old ones and started preparing for installing new ones.
Then watched most of the Oscars. I was afraid Regis Philbin was going to be the host, so I wasn't planning on watching the show. When I found out Jon Stewart was the host, I changed my plans.
Suffered from a mild migraine Friday and Saturday. Vertigo and a mild headache. It was gone on Sunday.
Friday afternoon was spent dealing with the stained glass workbench and supplies. I moved all of the glass to underneath the workbench, clearing out the glass cabinet fro transport to the storage shed.
We made a run to Best Buy and spent some gift cars on movies and a thumb drive. And then on to Durango's for dinner.
Saturday I slept until around 1pm. I was in absolutely no condition for aikido. :( We made a run to the shed. I think it's almost the final run we'll have to make.
Saturday evening was gaming.
Sunday was a gorgeous morning. The migraine was gone, the temperature was coolish. The entire family sat out in the fenced yard and chilled. The two humans read the paper while the animals just goofed around.
Mother's Day was spent at the movies: "Waitress". A good movie, even if it is a "chick flick". Ice Cream at Marble Slab afterwards.
Home to a whipped up meal and "Casino Royale".
A good weekend. If it hadn't been for the migraine, a great weekend.
