Slow Progress on Stained Glass

Well, I managed to make some more progress on our stained glass. I'm pretty picky about getting the glass to fit precisely, so the going is pretty slow. Today I mostly fine-tuned pieces that were already cut out to make sure they fit together properly, coppered them, and, for the first time, I tried my hand at soldering. Decided it was time to solder because Jeff works during the day and by the time he gets home the sunroom is dark and so we can go days between sessions of stained glass because he cannot get to the project during the daytime.

It's actually difficult, but I'm going to stop for the day. That table really is too low and I don't want to overdo again and strain my back. Oh, and I drew my first blood on this project! It's actually surprising that it's taken this long, we are working with cut glass after all. It was a clean cut on my fingertip and not really a big deal.

This afternoon I'm hoping to make some progress on one of the boy's quilts. After having a thoroughly unproductive weekend this weekend (we watched all three seasons of Arrested Development), I've decided I need to have hand projects like this queued up so when I pass 30+ hours watching TV (well, really a computer) I can be making forward progress on a project. I've got the binding cut out and pieced for one of the twins' quilts and I need to cut down the edges of the quilt and then sew the binding down on the edge. I finish the backside of the binding by hand. I've never been happy when I've totally sewn it down by machine; it's too sloppy on the back.

BTW, for those interested, the first season of Arrested Development was the only season worth watching (wish we had known that). The first season was very funny, but the same jokes lost their luster through the second and third season. Small wonder it was cancelled. You can find it at Hulu.

6PM Update: I actually managed to have a pretty good afternoon. Got a bit more stained glass done, plus I also managed to machine sew the binding on one of the twins' quilts. I'm goofing off reading the ever more pessimistic economic news tonight. It took a long time, but it looks like house prices are finally crashing throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Clara County. Too late to help us though, because it happened after we lost our stock portfolio. =)