It's been busy at Morning Glass these last few weeks, but the workshop is finally starting to take shape. The biggest development in recent days has been the sheeting of the exterior - the building now officially has an inside and an outside... 

Photo: Lesley Strachan

After another great weekend making windows at Mill Farm, we're pleased to announce the dates for our 2011 weekend workshop series.

The dates for 2011 are:

• Sat January 29th 10:00 AM - Sun January 30th, 5:00 PM
  
• Sat April 23rd 10:00AM - Sun April 24th 5:00PM
• Sat July 30th 10:00AM - Sun July 31st 5:00PM 
• Sat 29th October 10:00AM - Sun October 30th 5:00PM 

 We've made a few change to the booking system, and booking and payment for these classes is now available online.

The third of our 2010 weekend workshops will be held at Susie Hunt's studio at Mill Farm, Kemnay this weekend. The class is fully booked (as is our remaining class in Autumn), but if you are interested in attending one of our workshops and learning the techniques of tradiitonal stained glass, you can add your name to our weekend workshop mailing list.

The last week or so has been spent finishing off a longer term collaborative window - it's now up on the easel for cleaning, before fitting tie-wires and installation at the end of the month. It's going to be a fun one to install, that much is certain...

We have lift-off. It's been a long time coming, but the the new workshop is starting to take shape (above). Steve has been hard at it, and the frame should be complete by the end of next week once the roof trusses are delivered.

This week started with a short course for two of the joiners working on the Thurso West Church restoration project. Pretty at really, since John and Mikey were fantastic students (using hand tools every day clearly helps) and they manage to strip down and re-lead a tiny arched window from the church under supervision.

The last couple of days were spent cutting and leading the Craigievar "River" window. The widow consists of two panels (the lower panel glass, cut and ready for leading, is shown below) and is based on initial designs by artist Gabi Reith.

Thursday and Friday last week were spent in Aberdeen with Michael Zappert, installing five new windows he had made for a traditional vestibule. The panels consisted of reclaimed Victorian rondels (Mike has an almost unlimited supply of them, but that's another post entirely!) set in Lambert's quarries, with a flashed Tatra red border. Everything went very smoothly with the removal of the old glazing, most probably because we had enough tools between us to dismantle the entire street... Installation went extremely well too, and Mike measured up for the next 8 panels before we left...

I recently installed a lightbox piece for a customer in Aberdeen. The piece, a small art-nouveau panel, was designed to occupy an alcove which formed a window into a larder/cupboard in the back kitchen of a large granite propert in Aberdeen. The area the window looked out onto was now covered by a beautiful conservatory, and the client wanted to fill the alcove with a coloured window.

Construction work on our new workspace continues. The site is now re-levelled, with what the builder described as "the world's biggest soakaway" around the building, and the blocks for the floor slab complete.

Earlier this week I was up north, to remove 3 windows from Thurso West Church. The windows had previously been remade to incorporate hopper vents, but the ironwork of the vents had corroded so badly there was danger of damage to the stonework. Another deciding factor in prioritising these windows was that the glass in the quarries was very different in colour to those elsewhere in the church.

Over the next month or so we will remake the three windows without the hoppers, using a more sympathetic choice of glass. We'll alos be carrying out some training work, teaching Mikey (pictured above) and John Munro (owner of John Munro Joinery, the principal contractors on the project) the basics of stained glass repair.

I visited Kintore Parish Church this morning, to discuss a possible commission. This was my first visit to the church, and I hadn't expected to find a beautiful set of three William Wilson windows. I've uploaded a set of images from my visit here.