Stain Glass Poppies

My wife, Chris, and I, with the help of one of my wife's teaching colleagues, Steve and his wife Cynthia, made a stain glass window for our home. It started as an item on our daughter-in-law Emery's Christmas gift wishlist. She wanted a stain glass window for her kitchen, Steve is a master glass artist, and with Cynthia they have made many beautiful windows and perhaps hundreds of stained glass mandalas with his students over the years.
As we thought about getting a window for our daughter-in-law, Chris asked Steve about costs for his windows. He totally surprised us when he said, "Oh, why don't you come over, and I'll teach you how to make the windows. You can make one for her and one for you. I'll give you the glass, and you can pay for some of the supplies."
Well, we know a great deal when it slaps us in the face, so we took him up on his offer. We found designs that we liked, and Steve made some artistic design improvements. We learned about pattern preparation and looked at a lot of glass. The we started cutting pieces of glass and grinding the edges. Then came foiling all the pieces with copper and soldering them together. When the windows were soldered on both sides, we brushed on a acid that turned the solder black. Steve did most of the work, but he let us think we were doing more than we were.

    The finished window ready to install at the top of the stairs.

 The pieces of glass laid out on the pattern.

Almost finished with the glass cutting before foiling and soldering.

Still have to do some adjusting of the window it fit the casement. It looks different each hour of the day as the sunlight and cloud shadows change.

This is Emery's window.

Steve and Cynthia generously gave us some glass working tools, so we can make some more windows. There are several designs I would like to do. I have now started our next project, which I need to work on quickly if I want some help and advice from Steve. He is retiring at the end of this school year and they are moving to Phoenix. Steve gave us more glass for the new project. He says it makes it less glass he has to move.