The Family That Prays Together

What an honor to create a family cross for this beautiful family!

The photo below shows this glass work in several shots so you can see the final piece, a close up with the background glass, and another close up showing the very textured state the crushed glass was left in.

I love working with various sizes of crushed glass, including frit to give the frayed edge seen on this piece.

For my work, lately I have been using System 96 in sheets.  I cut them to size big enough to fit into my glass crusher.  From there, I sort out the sizes so I can layer the glass in the way it will work out best for each piece.  For things like this where I want a frayed edge, I use a simple mold cut out of foam board and layer the glass until it gets no thicker than the 1/2 board I am using.  Carefully, I pull up the mold, rearrange any stray pieces, and fire it to about 1300 degrees.  The background with names and dates was fired separately.  Next, the glass is glued using KOA 300 and an ultraviolet light to set it.  This gluing method has been working very well for me on transparent glass.

What a beautiful wedding gift for somebody special in your life, don't you think?  Elizabeth, thank you for giving me the opportunity to give you a gift I know your family will enjoy for a long time to come.  Because this has to go through 2-3 firings in the kiln, advance notice for gifts of this type are necessary.

Pat Deere

LINKS:  Click HERE For more information on custom designed stained glass by Pat Deere.

Some new glass - Wow!

Ok - I have been telling you I went to Chicago and bought glass... blah blah blah. Well finally, I have a sneak peak of some of what I bought. This picture shows just 5 sheets of what I was able to get at phenominal prices. May of these are transitional glasses that won't be manufactured on a regular basis. But, for most projects, that won't matter.

What you see here are a couple of pieces of fractured/streamer glass, a cool combination of purples and teals from Spectrum, a sheet of the new Float Fire glass that can be fused to window glass, and a wonderful sample of Saint-Gobain great for sandblasting.

It takes me a while but I'll be adding these to my web site and they are available at my studio any time. If you're looking for a specific piece of glass to finish a project, let me know. I'll do my best to help you out.

Custom Stained Glass: If you have been thinking about a piece of stained glass custom designed for your home, now is the time. Check out the new pieces you won't find elsewhere that can be incorporated into your home.

Pat Deere