Piecing Together Our Most Chilly Season

Well, the weather here in Portland, Oregon has been anything but a Winter Wonderland. It's been cold, grey and very, very wet. But that hasn't stopped me from getting into the spirit of the season. I've found a few special projects that have kept me pretty busy while still remembering what winter is all about.      

I decided to experiment with bevels. This snowflake, entitled "Winter Imprint", is made up of 18 1 1/2'' glass diamonds and 6 small gem nuggets. The center, circular bit was cut from frost-like textured glass I had leftover from projects I did for the show. This piece certainly took patience. I decided, because of the crevices that would occur, I decided to put a thin layer of solder over each piece before putting it together. Otherwise I would have had a lot of hard-to-reach places to work with. (And I'm so glad I did!!) Yes, my fingers did get awfully warm and the flux made it messy. And it was difficult handling the hot iron with such small gems but it was well worth the process. I would recommend using protection gloves like I did.         

I named this one "Winter Imprint"

I then used a handful horseshoe nails to ensure the placement of each connection was just right. After that I had to carefully unite each piece with a small dot of solder trying to keep everything in it's place. Once that had cooled, I finished with soldering the channels twice. First for the initial contact, and then a more polished, complete line. Remember, it's very important to allow the project to completely cool in between each step.

Not only was I inspired by our most chilly season but I ended up with a fabulous piece of art to give to my loving Mother-In-Law!!!