The deed is done...almost

I'm finished my panels!...well almost. It's all glued together and drying and then we'll do the final pegging in a couple of weeks when we have carpentry again. This week, I finished fielding the backs of my two panels and reworked my frames (only slightly) to fit the panels in and then we fitted everything together and voila! a super cool and useless set of panels that has taught me how to saw, plane, make dovetails and lapjoints, make a dado, field and troubleshoot a furniture fit.

My panels and frame all trussed up with pipe clamps. The panels are free fit, so that they can shift about with changes in climate and the frame is attached around them. Right now there is just a bit of glue helping it out. It will have pegs put in each joint as well. But it was a pretty good furniture fit to begin with.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with it. I am of course, super proud of my kinda useless project and am wondering if I should paint it and do a fun artsy thing on the raised panels or if I should just wax it and put it on the wall. Any thoughts?

And then we moved on to some rudimentary large tenons which we will hopefully get to making some mortices for next time around.

The tenon that I made after clamping together the above panels and frame. It will eventually be a through-tenon. I measured and remeasured and cut very, very straight lines so this baby should it's mortice like a hand fits a glove.

Wedding Cakes and Stained Glass

I apologize for the long vacation I took from blogging. Needless to say the turn of the new year saw us very busy, with Hen and Cock - a- doos (our english friend's way of saying bachelor/bachelorette party), weddings and getting sick and getting back to school, I could not seem to find a way to get back to blogging. But I'm back now!

The first few weeks of school have been pretty low key anyways, with the exception of doing some glazing (i.e. stained glass) we were pretty boring. Which was good because it gave me time to start making the great big wedding cake for Shaun and Amanda's wedding. Which turned out fabulous - even though it had to sit overnight - it was still delicious and moist - probably due to the 6 lbs.!! of butter in the icing. Everyone loved it - even  the two grandmothers, who were the true taste testers.

Picture of the emcees, our good friends Ilan and Dan, with the cake. You can see the lovely menu we were treated to on the blackboard in the background. And no our friends who got married were not mathematicians though they are academicians and the wedding was at Wycliffe college in T.O.  (Picture is courtesy of the bride's cousin, Simona - Thanks Simona! because I forgot to take pictures of my own masterpiece.) 

And heres the moment of truth from the gorgeous bride and handsome groom! There were no complaints. Also a big shout out to Shaun and Amanda, the lovely couple above, for baking 25 meat and vegetarian pies for their own wedding and for being gorgeous. (Again picture is courtesy of the brides cousin Simona - Thanks again!)

Anyhow, after all the feverish wedding goings-on. I was able to actually get back on track and finished my stained glass project. We were lucky to have a fantastic instructor John F. Wilcox of Vitreous Glassworks who not only taught us about the history of glass (who knew it was so interesting - from Pliny the Elder to Tiffany to Henry Holiday) but taught us how to create our own actually 'stained' glass. We not only got to paint on our own designs and then stain the glass with silver (which turns the glass yellow - so cool!) before firing them in the kiln, we also put together our own pieces - a fun and sometimes dangerous project.

But John's enthusiasm was contagious, and I soon got over my anxiety surrounding shattering glass and the quantities of heavy metals we were coming in contact with (it's not just lead - there are some nasty things in the paints as well). It may have helped to have been rewarded by ending up with a really cool piece - if I do say so myself - complete with morbid skull and all.

This is my piece. Obviously I didn't get a good picture with  light coming through it and as we speak it is blustery snow and overcast out so I can' t even attempt a better picture but you get the idea. The centre is a skull with roses around it and  you can't really see it but the back is stained with silver making the skull a deeper yellow.  The border pieces are recycled glass from St. Leo's in Toronto.

We also went on a little field trip into Queenston to see the stained glass in the Brock Memorial Church - St. Saviour's. It was amazing to see some of what John called the most beautiful glasswork in Southern Ontario. The altar glasswork was absolutely amazing and unlike so much of our modern stained glass which has minimal painting and details and is mostly just shaped coloured glass, this work by McCausland Glass was absolutely resplendent with intricate painted details that really brought the glass to life. We have been to this church before, and it is amazing because you can't really see these details until you are up close to the altar and yet they were still put in, because that was what you did at the time. Just another example of the craftsmanship of the past.

A picture of the altar glass at St. Saviour's. Look at how vivid the colour is - especially in the layering on the shield. And look at the details in the face and clothing. You can barely see them, but those are intricate swirling dragons on the breastplate of the Archangel.

Another stunning view of the details in the altar glass. All of the little border pieces are painted with beautiful designs and I absolutely adore these oak tree pieces that are scattered throughout the piece and were all done by hand.