It's been a busy week at Morning Glass Designs... I've been working on a number of projects, several of which are almost complete.

The first part of the week saw the big kiln back in action, firing a large splashback project for a kitchen in Banchory. I wish I could say the kiln warms the studio up, but no, not so much... While the tiles fired, I pieced together a door panel comprised of a new surround for a piece of acid-etched Victorian glass from an LNER railway carriage - that's now drying off and should be installed in a week or two.

Yesterday I spent a few hours installing the first of the splashback pieces. The final piece is in the kiln, cooling down and the plan is to fit the final piece and grout on Monday - photo's then, I promise. 

And today. Up at the crack of dawn to load the kiln, and then into B&Q for supplies. A visit with a potential client in Footdee, followed by the removal of a panel from another Footdee house. This panel was pretty old, judging by the state of the outer lead and putty, and may be some of the older glass in the area as the house door is original, and the house dates from the late 1880's.

The afternoon was spent installing a restored panel in what was the old manse for a Torry church. It still has it's full complement of Victorian panels, including a door panel restored by Martin Farrelly, who has featured on this blog before. The photo above is a detail from Martin's panel, more photo's of the restored panel here.

I installed two very simple door panels in a pitch pine door in a traditional farmhouse this morning. The client had requested additional protective glazing on the inside of the panels, which is relatively unusual for an internal panel. We also had to produce some new mouldings to replace some missing sections - thanks Niall!

More photo's here.

I arrived at the workshop to find Mike hard at work, digging his way into the front door. A combination of heavy snow fall, roofalanches and an enthusiastic snowplough driver had combined to bar access... The temperature inside the workshop was a tropical 1ºC ... Once we got going, however, it wasn't too bad.

The snow has set me back a bit on quite a few projects, but I am now back working on a large fused glass kitchen splashback commission. The piece consists of nine large tiles approximately 450mm long, with each panel made of two layers of fusible glass, coloured on top over a white base glass. The top of the splashback curves in a long gentle wave, to fit under a unit.

Today I cut 8 of the 9 tiles - I'll fire these and fit them, then cut the final tile to fill the gap to the wall, so I can be sure it will fit. The first firing is tomorrow - wish me luck. And, if you live in Kincardine O'neil, don't plan on using a kettle for a few hours tomorrow evening because my 22kW kiln is ging to suck every last drop of energy out of the grid...