Leadlights

Our beautiful windows in our front door are in need of repair.

The lead is cracked, and even missing in places.  So whilst having a quote for the front windows on the house, we asked about the door.  The guy didn't give us an exact price, just said to work on the principle of £6 per piece of glass..

...so my husband dutifully counted them (out of interest mainly!) and with more than 500 the quote was going to be in excess of £4,000!  My husband's response?  "Why don't you go and learn how to lead stained glass rather than phaffing around with knitting and crochet!"  I did chuckle, particularly as I don't do THaT much crochet, and haven't picked up knitting needles in a good number of months.  And not one to turn down learning something new, I quickly booked myself on a class up in Southport, only 1 hour's drive away, with the lovely Lesley and Richard at Glass Magic

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There was a choice of three designs that could be completed in a day so I chose the sunshine and set about choosing colours a little different than the usual (with lots of encouragement from Lesley, who has seen many blue skies and green hills and fancied a change!)

I left the choice of glass for the sun until last, and in the end a piece of mirrored glass fit the bill.

(that's my hand and the funky art palette cover for my i-phone you can see in the sun!)

Glass looks VeRY different when you hold it up to the light so I had to juggle pieces in my hand and hold them up to the window whilst planning my piece.   I had a thoroughly enjoyable day, Richard and Lesley are so welcoming, friendly and knowledgeable, and I think I'm hooked!  I've wanted to do this for so long, and got a chance earlier in the summer to do some copper foiling.

This was just a two hour workshop so we had to choose up to five pieces of pre-cut glass to work with.  I chose two mirrored pieces and a large pebble as well as a couple of pieces of more traditional glass.

Again it looks very different hanging at the window, although this photo doesn't really do it justice, especially the mirrored pieces (the top one is a pale green!)