New window necklaces

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I needed to do some more stained glass window necklaces for Grace cathedral, so I finished them off today.

Three of them are utilizing the scenes from the St Matthew window in the Chapel of Grace, and the fourth - the largest - is from one of the more contemporary style windows in the nave of the church.

I will take them to the shop at Grace on Sunday when I sing there.

They vary quite a bit in different lights.  I like that aspect as when you wear it, you see different colors and suddenly, the vibrance shines through....but then you turn and it looks different again.

Hope you like them - and I appreciated your comments on the bangles. Thanks for that.

New Window Bangles

My jewelry is selling well at Grace Cathedral and so I made a few new bangles this week.

They were made from the St Matthew Window in the Chapel of Grace.The window was created by Charles Connick and is the first window as you enter the chapel.

Connick's chapel of Grace window designs, like the chapel architecture, were inspired by the famed and still-surviving Sainte-Chapelle - a private chapel attached to the royal palace in Paris. This chapel is considered one of the highest achievements of Gothic architecture - and   is somewhere I would love to visit one day........

The new bangles feature both the full length St Matthew window and also just small vignettes. I like the one shown above on the left as it has bunches of grapes on it...merlot?

 I need to make some more necklaces too, so I'll show you those when I'm done.

Vibrance and Grace

I took some of my 'stained glass' aluminum jewelry down to Grace Cathedral this week for them to sell in their gift shop.  I was delighted that they wanted to stock it.

The jewelry is all based on the stained glass windows in the cathedral (yes, I have permission to use it).  The colors are so vibrant, which is why I chose to call the series "Vibrance and Grace".

It'll be interesting if I see any of the congregation wearing it when I go down to sing on Sunday.

I heard that they went on sale on Tuesday and two pieces sold straight away!  How encouraging is that.

Now I'm working on some new windows - and it looks like I need to get working!

Stained glass window bangles

I finished off some more stained glass window bangles today, in blue colors!

As I'm now looking to link back to a previous post regarding the predominantly red window bangles I've made, I realize that I didn't blog about those - only showed you the window photos! 

Anyhow, today's bangles contrast with the ones you haven't yet seen (!!!) in that they are predominantly blue!  They are based on the windows in Grace cathedral, San Francisco. Beautiful colors and more traditional in design that the others.  I'll show you the red ones another day...soon!

I had good news this week that the Gift Store at Grace Cathedral is going to stock some of my stained glass window necklaces, earrings and bangles...just as soon as I get them there.  It'll be nice to have my work sold where I sing.

Stained glass windows

While I haven't been making much jewelry recently, I have been busy learning new things - namely Adobe Photoshop.  I want to do more stained glass window bangles, but I've never grasped Photoshop and as I need to do some photo manipulation, I've been working through the AdobeTV tutorials. They are really are good. 

When I was at the cathedral in SF on Sunday, I took quite a few photos of the windows there and so have lots of material to jiggle around with on photoshop.  There are some contemporary windows and also more traditional ones at Grace, so it'll be interesting to see how they all work out.

I get a great deal of satisfaction learning new things and while I had tried photoshop before, it was more just me fiddling around and trying to figure things out, rather than actually going step by step and following tutorials etc. It now makes much more sense and I can see myself using it for lots of different things.

And soon, there will be new bangles - if my manipulations work out!

Do you use photoshop in your work? 

(Oh dear! Looking at this post now, you can see that I am really my father's daughter! Some of you may recall his "Sunday's spotlight" blog posts, with photos of stained glass windows in them!  Am I on the same slippery slope :-D ????????)

Weekly bird in the hand

This week's good things:

• Bella, Bella, Bella.  Yes, we are looking after our friend's little dog again for a few weeks while they are away.  She is a sweetie - and is behaving sooooo well..... I wonder if it'll last! Last time we had her for a month and she was on her best behavior for the first 5 days, then the true Bella came out!!!  So far, she's been here 5 nights...so we'll see what tomorrow brings :-D
• Having a relaxing afternoon with new friends.
• Hot weather - in the 90's all week - which is just what the grapes need to ripen and sweeten.
• Selling our apartment! We sold our apartment in England this week - and it was on the market less than 2 weeks!  All pretty easy when we weren't even there! Fingers crossed it proceeds just as easily now.
• Having a day crafting. I went to Art is ..... You in Petaluma on Friday for a day class.  In line with my "try something new" goal of the year, it wasn't jewelry but something different for me!  A day to indulge in experimenting, trying and exploring. I haven't finished my project yet - a box of sorts - but when I have, I'll show you some photos.  Tomorrow I have another day doing new things at the same retreat.
• Back singing at the cathedral after our summer break. On Sunday we sang with the men and boys choir.  It was great - 40 voices singing beautiful music together.
• My sister and her husband.  It was their wedding anniversary on Sunday.  Many congrats to them xxxxxxx

Hope your week has been full of good things too.

Weekly bird in the hand

Here is this week's things that I am grateful for:

Kingfisher photo by Rathika Ramasamy

• The wonderful news that the second baby in our family due in January will be a little boy. That means  the new year will start with a little girl and a little boy.
• I was rear-ended at traffic lights this week.  The guy behind, just drove straight into me.  He then drove straight off without stopping.  While I'm not grateful for this, I am grateful that I wasn't seriously hurt and the car wasn't terribly damaged.
• Karen for helping me calm down after my car accident.
• The opportunity to learn. I'm at a conference this weekend - lectures from 8am until 9pm.  So nice to just focus on that and nothing else.
• Camerata - the choir I sing with at Grace cathedral. We started the season again this Wednesday after a summer's break. It was lovely to be back singing great music.
• The past year.  A year ago Monday, my husband had a heart attack. He has recovered really well. I am soooooooooo grateful.xx

Hope your week has been full of positive things.

Weekly Bird in the hand

Saturday is here again!  The weeks go so fast.  Here are the things I'm grateful for this week; my bird in the hand

Photo by whologwhy

• The life of John R.  He died earlier this week.  A lovely friend from Sonoma. We will miss him. And Sonoma will miss him too as he gave a lot to the community - especially in his work with youth.
• The life of Doris, my friend Jill's mum, who also died this week.  I went to her lovely memorial and tribute service this afternoon.
• The roses.  You may hear Californians moaning about the wet spring this year, but all that rain has brought the best show of roses.  Some of our bushes must have over 200 blooms on each one! I will take some photos next week. They are stunning.
• Camerata - the group I sing with at Grace Cathedral.  We finished our singing for the summer with a lovely service last Sunday. It's been a great season.  Lovely people and lovely music. 
• The excitement of planning a trip. We are hoping to go to New Zealand in January and so this week I've found some time to read up all about it.  Still lots more to read, but I'm excited already about going!
• Finally getting our internet connection back again! It went out on Sunday and the repair finally seemed to work by Friday! Comcast spent a lot of time on it and, maybe foolishly, I'm hoping they have really sorted it out this time.  
• New creative ideas using new materials!
• Green smoothies, green smoothies and green smoothies! I'm really into them right now. They taste like fruit smoothies but are packed with healthy green leaf veg too. A tasty way to get fruit and veg easily each day!

Weekly Bird in the Hand

It's that time again - when I tell you the things I'm grateful for this week - the things that feel like a having a bird in the hand.

Photo by subarcticmike

• My voice teacher Karen - she does more than sort my voice/singing out!
• The man in Macy's who asked me to help him chose a color of a sweater for himself. He was so sweet and wanted to know why I'd chosen one color over another and what he should look for next time.  We had such a nice chat about colors!
• The delight in just singing out! We had a great rehearsal this week at Grace, sight reading lots of new music for Xmas - including some fun loud pieces.
• My bookclub. We had our bookclub Xmas lunch yesterday.  This year, we've read some great books and had some wonderful discussions.  It's a great group of women and yesterday was such fun.   My favourite book we read this year was The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.
• French Macarons!  I made some of these for our bookclub lunch! Yummy!! A light but delicious gluten free dessert! (The photo below isn't the ones I made - I only did three flavours!!)

Hope you've had a yummy week too.

Cathedral Rose Window jewelry

I made some more cathedral rose windows last week - this time making larger earrings than my original pair. These earrings are 3.5 cm diameter (approx 1.5 inches).

The design is the rose window at the East end of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco where I sing every week. I'm really pleased with how the color from the anodized aluminum shines through them, giving the illusion of stained glass.

 

I also made a pendant.  I've strung it here on 5 cables but also am waiting on a chain for it, as I think, with it's size, it will be nice on a longer chain too. 

And here's the set: 

If you are interested in rose window design.....the geometry of the design of this window at Grace is the same as the rose window in the Gothic cathedral of Chartres, France - but the final design is actually different. Here are the two so that you can compare -  and for more geometry, here is a link to a detailed comparison of the two windows. 

Chartres Cathedral Rose Window

Grace Cathedral Rose Window

Maybe I should try the Chartres window next......

Gothic Arch - stained "glass" windows

One of the defining characteristics of Gothic architecture is the pointed or ogival arch which evolved from the Roman round topped arch.

As I sit in Grace cathedral each Sunday, where I sing in the choir, I just can't help but look at the stained glass windows.  Most of the windows have what is called an internal tracery made up of small ribbed arches with different pictures or patterns in each.

The colors and indeed the reflections of the colors on the floors and walls of the cathedral are just a delight to behold.

 

As I arrived a little early last week to sing, I wandered around and just looked at the windows...again...and thus was inspired to capture some of those arches as earrings in silver and using the color anodized aluminum to mimic the look of the stained glass.

I have more to show to you another day of the rose windows but hope you like todays arches.

Cathedral rose windows

I've made a few pairs of earrings based on the design of the Rose Window of Grace Cathedral, where I sing every week.  Previously I've created the "stone" part of the window in silver and then used hand colored resin to represent the "glass".  In the style of my new "bright flowers" earrings, I thought I'd try a different approach on my own pair of rose window earrings - namely remove the resin and hang a piece a colored anodized aluminum in the back to represent the "stained glass". What do you think?

 

Do you like the look?  I colored the aluminum with splashes of color - trying not to make too much mess!!!  You can see here the aluminum layer:

This combining silver with colored aluminum really goes a long way to satisfy my lust for bright colors.  It means I can still use the silver, but add color as a backing.

I'll look forward to wearing these at Grace on Sunday. I wonder if anyone will notice......

Rose Windows

I'm up at my parents house now in Lincoln. (I know, you'd never have guessed they lived in Lincoln after reading my dad's regular Sunday blog posts! I'm sure you know now more about Lincoln than most people in England do!)


Anyhow - we had our belated Christmas present giving last night so I can now show you what I made my mum.


I made her some earrings and necklace designed from the rose window at Grace cathedral, San Francisco. She seems to wear her other arched church window earrings quite a lot so thought she might like these and feel close to me, when I sing at Grace.


The "glass" is hand colored resin. She has very sensitive ears so only likes the really fine wires. I'm not a great fan of this style of ear wire, but they seem to work well for her ..... Having the resin as a large part of the design also means the earrings are very lightweight, which helps too.


The light shines nicely through them as you wear them in your ears.

Woke up this morning - and she was wearing them! Guess that's a good sign!

Cathedral rose window earrings

Finally I've made some earrings! It seems that all my inspiration tends towards bracelets, bangles and necklaces lately..... Not quite sure why......And I can't even say the earrings are a new design as I have previously made a similar necklace.

Anyhow - the design of the earrings is from the rose window at Grace cathedral in San Francisco where I sing every week. As I sing, this is what I see! Just a gorgeous geometric array for stained glass. Here is the window:

In the earrings, the "stained glass" is actually blue, red and yellow resin.


What I like about the earrings is that the light shines through them, like the window. With the necklace, as you wear it is against your skin so you don't get the transparency of the resin, but as earrings you do. The other great thing is that the earrings are really light weight and comfortable as the silver is all cut out and the resin is much lighter than metal.

Hope you like them....