Glass Order Has Arrived!

Today I have had a good day and got a lot accomplished. It was made even better to discover that Jannadu featured me on her blog!


I wanted to share what I did today with you. The glass order I put together last week arrived yesterday, mid afternoon.

Today Dad opened the crate up and my son and I unloaded it and brought it in. Dad cut up the first half of glass while I priced and put it away.

The first picture shows the cut up glass pieces awaiting prices so they can be put away in the main room.

The second picture shows the second stack of glass from the crate.

The third picture shows about half of the first stack of glass.

All this glass, about 55 half sheets was unpacked, cut down, priced and put away today. I did all of the second stack.

Finally after about 6 years I discovered by accident what I have been doing wrong when it comes to breaking sheets of glass. When I was a teenager I could break them down easily and without the glass breaking wrong. When I started working with glass again I couldn't figure out why I couldn't consistently break large pieces of glass down. I grabbed the cutter, made the score and I knew what I have been doing wrong! Turns out I have been gripping the cutter in a "choke" hold. I need to hold the back end of the pistol grip cutter to keep the angle and pressure consistent when I am reaching that far away from my body and at that height.

I proceeded to cut the rest of the glass quickly with no bad scores!!!!

We also got four new fusing colors! Persimmon, Chestnut, Terracotta and Stone!

I look forward to trying out these new colors as soon as the Next Project is done!

The Glass Shop

I wanted to take a moment and share my "alter ego" with all as I have recently realized that not too many know what I do in my real life. And that it is what brought me to glass fusing and wire wrapping.

When I was in grade school my dad decided he wanted to learn how to do stained glass. We drove up to Bend, over an hour away to visit the little stained glass store that was there on Division street. There wasn't a whole lot on that street at that time. I'm not even sure it was paved yet! As most of my parent's family lived in Bend I imagine we also visited while we were there. Anyway my dad went home and shortly thereafter made his first piece ever. It was a leaded glass owl. After that he took a Central Oregon Community College class on stained glass in Redmond. Being a little girl I don't remember all that much, but the next thing I really remember is he started going to the Bend Saturday Market and selling what he and my mom had made. That was in 1976 I believe. (The market was started in 1974 and is still going to this day.)

Soon the recession came along and the stained glass we sold at it and other markets and shows were paying the bills and putting food in our tummies. At this time the "real" job was mining decorative building stone. Just like the recession we are in now nobody was building so no stone was being sold. By the time the economy was picking up my dad was diagnosed with tendonitis in his shoulder. My parents sold the mining business and we moved back to Bend. My dad went looking for a real job. Two months later my parents decided to open a stained glass retail store and studio. They found a place to rent and put up a "proposed business" sign. The next thing we know a friend of ours who had a small glass shop on Bond Street called and wanted to know if we wanted to buy him out as he wanted to go back into construction. So of course we did and voila Bend Stained Glass Company was born. At this time I was barely 14. With a lot of hard work our store/studio was soon opened. I personally have been doing stained glass since I was eight. When my mother became ill in 2003 I took over teaching classes. Since her death in 2003 I have helped my dad run the glass shop.

The picture shows two of our three Spectrun glass cases. The bottom row of slots holds four square foot sheets (half sheets) of glass usually two feet by two feet. The second row up holds two square foot pieces that are usually one foot by two feet. The third and fourth rows hold one square and half square foot pieces. I spent most of last Wednesday and all of last Thursday pulling all the glass out of their slots one color at a time. I cleaned the slots and the glass. I sorted the glass, inventoried the glass and and with the help of my ex cut the large down and re-priced them to fill the mostly bare upper slots. While doing this I also created an order list of what we needed to fill out the holes in our inventory. The good news is we had more glass than we thought and could easily get what we wanted without having to pick and choose to keep the number of pieces down.