Oak leaves project~~things are moving along

A few days ago, I got started on my oak leaves project. As of today, here's how things are looking--about half way through the foiling process. Once I got started, all of the pieces for the project were cut out by hand~~and some of the heavily curved pieces needed their curves cut on the ring saw as well. It was an all day event to make all that happen...with as hot as its been here I've been moving a little bit slower. The upside to it all is that glass is a lot easier to work with in warm weather as compared to cold. In the winter I need to warm the glass up before cutting it~~cold glass tends to break not where you really wanted it to.

One by one, the pieces started being fit against the original pattern. I met someone the other day who starts their projects from the bottom up~~I'm the type that always starts in the center and moves out.

After the pieces are cut out and in order to get them to sit next to their neighbors nicely they all get their rough bumpy edges smoothed out with the glass grinder. I wish smoothing people out could be so easy. For this project I've had to use both my grinders. The above fitted with a 3/4 inch grinder head and another grinder that has a much smaller 1/4 bit on it to get into the heavy curves where the regular bit won't fit.

Since I've taken on some workshop helpers I've got to cover anything I'm working on well--above a board placed over the project. I'm afraid that the cats would rearrange the glass pieces and I'd be really confused the next day. Or worse, they might feel the need to toss the pieces on the floor. Its hard to explain to them that glass doesn't bounce all that well. This is Critter, a wonderful Tabby that decided to move in with us last year. Apparently, he's planning on guarding the project overnight for me.

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An interesting visitor stopped in this afternoon. A beautiful moth with lovely patterned wings. Its about 2 1/2 inches long, about 6cm. I've yet to figure out what kind it is. Surprisingly, it stayed in place on the iris leaves while the cats played close by. Perhaps its good it didn't move, it might have been what saved it from attack.