Latest stained glass

I feel like I don't have that much to blog about at the moment - partly because I haven't had as much time as usual for crafting and partly because everything I am working on seems to be quite a big project so I'm not getting anything finished!!

I'm hoping to rectify that a bit over the Easter weekend but in the meantime I thought I'd show you a couple of pictures of my latest stained glass piece.


It is a design from one of the books our teacher has and it quite simple but one I've always liked. I wanted to make something quick (ish!) whilst I thought about other larger designs and it was good for using up pieces of glass I already had. Apart from the yellow glass I didn't have to buy any new glass for this piece....although it has barely made a dent in the amount of glass I have!


I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out and I love the colour palette of rich, jewel like colours - I'm definitely going to remember this for future projects.

I also made a few little pieces to use up scraps at the end of the term.


These beach huts are done using the copper foiling method and I think I am going to hang them in the window as lightcatchers.


It is the Easter break from my stained glass class at the moment and I'm feeling a little bereft without it! The group I learn with is lovely and really inspirational and I can't wait to get back to work next term on a new piece. I think it is going to be a piece for my sitting room wall with lights behind it.....better get designing!

I hope you are all enjoying a lovely, crafty bank holiday weekend xx

Christmas Decorations (Part 2)

I've had my Christmas decorations up for over a week now and I've just realised that I never shared the rest of them with you. Whoops - I think it is all the pre-Christmas manic busyness that made it slip my mind. This year I've added to the felt decorations I made last year with some glass ornaments. (As always, I've struggled to photograph the glass - sorry if the pics are a bit blurry!)

First up the fused glass decorations for the tree. This is the "star" I made for the top:

There are more stars dotted about the tree.

I've tried to keep all the decorations in a roughly white and clear theme. The sparkly ones are made of either iridescent glass or dichroic glass.

This decoration is inspired by one I saw on flickr. Unfortunately I now can't find the original photo. If anyone knows whose it was then please let me know so I can credit the original maker:

I've also made around 10 stained glass stars using the copper foil method.

I haven't done that much copper foiling so these stars were a really good project to practice on - and brilliant for using up all the scraps of glass I have hanging around.

I haven't quite finished decorating the tree (I still need to add those crochet granny stars!) but here is my almost complete tree:

The tree is actually in my bedroom. This is partly because there isn't really enough room in my living room and partly because I have a lovely bay window in my bedroom which is perfect for a tree. When it gets dark I turn the lights off, leave the curtains open and people going past can see it sparkling in the window.

I've also added a bit of decoration in the living room to make things a bit more festive in there, mainly centred on the fireplace:

The mini baubles were a set from Paperchase which I spent ages knotting onto a ribbon this time last year! Again, I've got some fused glass decorations hanging here. Here are some closeups:



Phew - that was quite a photo heavy post! I hope you enjoyed seeing all the decorations I have made for my flat. I am now working frantically on all the Christmas presents I need to finish before next weekend. Eeek! Still, it is much nicer sitting on my sofa sewing than it is doing battle in the shops! Hopefully I should be able to show you the products of my efforts soon.

Hope all your Christmas crafting is going well and you are looking forward to Christmas. Unfortunately I got so much into the festive spirit last night that I have now pretty much lost my voice!! Whoops!

Have a good week xx

Glass Lightcatcher - Autumn Sunset

Autumn always feels like a time of new beginnings to me - probably stemming from my school days. I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things - going to my evening classes, cosy evenings in with some craft, getting back into a routine. I'm particularly looking forward to going back to my stained glass classes, especially as I have FINALLY put the finishing touches at the piece I finished last term. It wasn't planned that way but the deep colours feel very Autumnal to me:

This is the first piece I have made incorporating fused glass into a leaded piece. It was a really good learning experience and I am definitely going to do this again. I'm having trouble getting a decent picture which really shows the rich colours (glass is SO difficult to photograph!) so here is a picture in front of a light box:

Each element of the glass was fused before being leaded up.

The pieces making up the sunset are coloured glass (purple, pink, amber) fused on top of iridescent glass - this gives them a lovely sparkly effect that can't really be seen on the pictures. In between the two layers I have used purple and amber frit (finely ground glass) to try and give the impression of the colours blending together. I think this is the part of the design that worked least well and I would probably change it I did it again!

The green glass was fused in different ways to try and give the impression of fields and give the piece some different textures. When fusing glass you can lay it on plaster in the kiln and any texture you put into the plaster transfers to the glass - this leads to some interesting effects.

I really enjoyed making this piece and it was really good to work with fused glass and find out the different challenges of leading it up. The main difficulty is that the glass changes shape (usually expands) in the kiln and this is not completely predictable so even a perfectly cut piece of glass may not fit the design after firing. The fused glass is also thicker than the glass normally used because several layers are fused together - I bought special lead to cope with this.

I haven't decided what to do for my next stained glass piece - I'd really like to do a big window but I don't really have any space in my flat for anymore. I think I'm going to have to get a friend or member of my family to commission me!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Dotty xx

PS. Thanks for the sympathetic comments about my ankle "incident". I am on the mend and starting to hobble a little faster that before!

Oooooh! Glassy!

I haven't blogged about it much before but one of my new(ish!) favourite things to do is make stained glass pieces. I've been doing classes for about a year and a half now and I love playing with all the colours and designs and coming up with a new piece.

I now have loads of glass in my flat - some leftover from other pieces and some bought because I was in the shop and saw something so beautiful I couldn't resist! (Seriously, going to a glass shop is like going to a sweet shop - there are beautiful things on every wall and you want them all!)

I seem to gravitate towards blue pieces and had lots in my stash so I decided to make use of all the pieces I have accumulated and design something modern and abstract using bluey greeny colours.

I also had never leaded up a circle before and its something I wanted to try so I decided to incorporate that into my design. Normally, when doing a straight edged piece, you lead into a right angle made with two blocks of wood - because you can't do this for a circle it is slightly more tricky! Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures whilst I was leading up - the one above is after I had leaded and soldered but before cementing and polishing.

This is the finished piece:

It has been cemented to keep the glass secure in the lead, the lead has been blackened and the whole piece has been polished to give it a shine.

I'm pretty pleased with the results, I just need to secure the ends of the chain and then it will be hung in the window as a lightcatcher. I think I am going to give this to my parents this weekend - I hope they like it! Just one more close up of those lovely blues:

I have also made another leaded circular piece of a similar size which incorporates pieces of fused glass but I will have to show you that another time. As well as finally finishing my glass pieces I've been taking a precious metal clay course this week which has been lots of fun and I'll have the results of that soon.

Happy crafting!

Dotty xx

Work In Progress (WIP)

The problem with doing so many different crafty things is I often get involved in a new project without properly finishing the previous one. I always have several projects on the go at any one time which is great because if I get bored with one I can always pick up another but it does mean I have lots of unfinished work hanging around my flat!

With this in mind I've decided to start doing a regular (maybe monthly?) Work in Progress (WIP) post - partly to show you what I've been up to, partly to try and shame myself into finishing them! Hopefully by the time I do my next WIP post some of these will be finished:

1. Emily Peacock Hug and Kiss cushions


I finished my Hug tapestry over a year and a half ago and the Kiss one sometime last summer. These have now been sitting around for over a year waiting to be turned into cushions. I've bought the backing fabric, the bobble trim and the cushion inserts and yet somehow I still haven't managed to spend a few hours making these into lovely cushions for my bed. I have no excuses!

2. Granny Square Cushion

These granny squares have been sitting around the house since the early summer waiting to become a cushion! They were originally going to be a blanket but the cotton I was using was really splitty and I decided it would drive me mad making a whole blanket so a cushion it is! I need to block these first (I've not done that before) and then decide how I am going to attach them together and how I am going to back the cushion - either fabric or more crochet. All this indecision has left me doing nothing!!

3. Fused glass jewellery

I've got loads of these pretty glass cabochons waiting to be turned into jewellery. Most of them are made of dichroic glass which really sparkles - they should be lovely when I get round to doing something with them!

I've also got these ones which have been attached to jewellery findings already. I want to take some decent pictures of these to put in my folksy shop. I've had a go a few times now but haven't managed to get any good enough photos yet - it is difficult to photograph glass!

4. Emily Peacock and Rob Ryan tapestry

I was given this kit for Christmas and it is a perfect present for me - I am a big fan of both Emily Peacock's and Rob Ryan's work. This is actually going quite well at the moment. I started this in the Spring and am about halfway through it now. I have finished most of the tricky picture part of the tapestry and now I am just working on the background. This means it is perfect for evenings in front of the TV when I want to do some sewing but need something that doesn't take too much concentration.

5. Granny Square blanket


Even though I have decided to make my other granny squares into a cushion I still wanted to make a granny square blanket with a white background. I am using a granny square pattern by Jane Brocket that I found in Mollie Makes magazine. I love this pattern - it makes quite a large square with a really nice squishy feel to it. The pattern is based on a blanket of 54 squares but I would really like to make mine bigger than that so I think it might be crocheting this one for a long time yet. I've done 20 squares so far so we'll see if I change my mind when I've got a bit further! I've realised that I probably shouldn't have chosen such expensive yarn - this is going to be one expensive blanket!

6. Fused glass photographs

I am currently trying to take photos of my fused glass pieces. Mainly to keep a record of what I have made and also to show you on this blog. Also I am thinking of trying to sell some pieces in future - there is only so much glass I can fit in my flat but I would like to keep making so I think I will have to sell some to stop myself getting buried in it (this is only a small fraction of what I have made) and also to help fund future making!

7. Stained glass pieces

I have two small stained glass pieces which I need to solder some chain onto for hanging and then polish up so they are finished. I won't put any pictures here as I am hoping to do that in the next couple of days (ha! a likely story...!) and then I will put up some pictures then.

8. Plushies

I have various monsters and fish in various states of completions that I am making for gifts and my folksy shop. These look a bit sad without their stuffing so I'll put some pictures up when I'm finished!

Phew! That was a long post! I feel a bit exhausted thinking about all the things I need to get on with, let alone actually doing them! Hopefully next time I do a WIP post some of these items will be finished.....

Dotty xx

PS. Sorry if the pics are a bit dark - its a horrible day here. Not good for taking photos but perfect for staying in and making!

I’m back!

Hellllooooooo! Anyone out there?

I’m back! Finally! It’s been a while….and I’m sorry I left you for so long. Things got pretty complicated in my life for a while and I wasn’t very well. And then by the time things started to improve I’d got out of the habit of blogging.

Anyway, you don’t want to hear about that – you want to know all about the crafting! You’ll be pleased to hear that the lull in blogging wasn’t combined with a lull in crafting. In fact I think I’ve been doing more and more. I find making things very therapeutic and it has been very helpful in improving my health. I’ve carried on with sewing and monster making but I’ve also learned some new skills which I am looking forward to telling you about.

But, before all that, I wanted to talk about this post. I signed up for pay it forward AGES ago and started working away on my gifts for the people who had signed up. I had most of my gifts complete months (years!) ago and then things went a little bit downhill and the PIF project fell by the wayside. I feel really bad about it, especially as Beaky sent me such a lovely gift. So, before I started blogging again I wanted to make up for it and send my PIF gifts on and start with a clean slate. I managed to get hold of Sue from BeeDesigns and her gift is on its way as I write. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get in touch with Sandra or Wilkie and both of their blogs seem to be defunct now :o( Guys, if you are out there then please get in touch…….

Right, that’s the business out of the way. Now for some sneaky previews of what I have been up to in my time away……

There’s crochet:

And fused glass:

Screenprinting:

And stained glass:

Patchwork:

And Tapestry:

And finally a spot of mosaic:

More detail in later posts…..

I’m looking forward to it.

Dotty xx