... and our Stained Glass Class

Back in September 2012 we both booked onto an evening Stained Glass course at a local community arts centre (part of Maiden Erlegh School, near Reading, Berkshire). We decided not to do a blog post on this until we had completed our pieces (especially as one was a Christmas present!!) but can now happily show them off!

The "course" was actually two 5 session courses that ran consecutively - the first was so good, we immediately booked onto the second - especially as it would mean getting another piece completed before Christmas.

Our tutor was Nicola Kantorowicz. She is sooooo talented, but more importantly very knowledgeable  and a VERY good teacher. We learnt all the stages of making a leaded piece:

• selecting / designing a pattern
• choosing colours and glass types
• cutting the glass with glass cutters
• shaping and applying the lead
• soldering
• cementing
• cleaning and polishing

Our first attempts were made from patterns, glass and other materials from Nicola. Here they are!

Both of these pieces are very typical for us; Sian's is tranquil blues and greens and Simi's is bright primary colours...

For our second pieces we were encouraged to be more independent (!), come up with our own designs and go shopping! Luckily for us in Reading there is an amazing Stained Glass supplies shop - Reading Stained Glass (London Road, Reading).

We somehow decided we were much more advanced than we were and both chose really ambitious projects. Luckily (and we're still not sure how - although it involved a LOT of extra "at home" work) they turned out OK and we are really pleased with them!

Here are some photos of our works in progress......

Grinding to get an exact fit... had to do a lot of this!!

Holding pieces in place whilst leading

Adding the cement

Working at Sian's as we were running out of time!

All leading to the final versions.... Ta Da!

Simi's (Christmas present for her mum)

(Just noticed the finger smudges - Oops!!)

Sian's (for above a door in her own house!)

We also met 'Mrs M Makes' on our course, who made lovely stained glass pieces (including one for a Xmas present) which you can check out on her blog here.

If you're local, there are lots of courses on offer at Maiden Erlegh. You can visit their website here for more details. We are going to try handmade book binding next, and will probably end up back on another course with Nicola!