How to Number a Stained-Glass Pattern

Series Summary

As you walk into a Christian church, your eyes are immediately drawn to the elaborate patterns and colors of the windows. As the light floods through, images of the legendary and mythical events of Christian history are illuminated in colorful glass. This ancient art form is known as stained glass, and many of these ancient stained glass works have survived for centuries. Throughout its thousand year history, stained glass has been displayed in many different forms and varieties. However, the most common (as any connoisseur of religious traditions will tell you) is depicted on the walls and windows of Christian churches.

Though the religious connotations of the art still exist, a modern movement has also shaped the stained glass craft. For instance, many use stained glass in their own windows at home. Some have designed stained glass patterns that are abstract and creative. There are many ways to solder stained glass, and because of this, new forms of stained glass art are emerging everyday. Stained glass has been used for light fixtures and side lights. For those that lack the expertise of soldering and cutting glass, many have discovered the beauty of sun catchers. A smaller form of stained glass art, these sun catchers have become a favorite craft of children and adults.

If you have been considering pickup up a new hobby, why not learn how to make stained glass art? With its long and lasting history, it is clear to see that everybody enjoys stained glass artwork. With stained glass patterns, you can create almost anything you want. In this free video series, our expert, Amanda Claire, takes time to show you a simple stained glass project. Learn how to pick glass for your project, and learn how to draw your own stained glass pattern. Amanda shows you how to trace your pattern onto the glass, and she shows you tips for cutting glass pieces. Learn how to use copper foil on your stained glass project. Amanda shows you how to solder your work too. So, if

Video Transcript

"All right so let's try and do a small, simple little stained glass project now. I have a little design I just drew up here, just kind of on the fly. Not particularly exciting but it will let us illustrate some of the basic techniques and principles of doing stained glass. I've drawn it out on paper. Actually, my plan is I'm going to have a, these are all going to be pieces of glass except for the middle. This won't be a piece of glass because I am hoping to maybe use one of my little melted marbles and be able to prepare that and install that kind of in the middle of it so that should be pretty. So, I have my design here. This is actual size, it's a little small, we will have to cut, these pieces are kind of small but we won't use a lot of glass and we will be able to see how to do it. So how many pieces are we going to have? We're going to have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen pieces. So, a couple of things you need to do. Obviously you want to figure out what colors you want to use. Okay, so I've got all kinds of glass and I haven't even decided that yet so I am going to do that between this clip and the next one, figure out what colors I'm going to do. But, another really important thing you need to do is number the pieces in your design. And, the reason for this is because we are actually going to cut these pieces out into puzzle pieces and use each one as a pattern for cutting a piece of glass. So, for that reason it is really important to remember which piece is which because even in a design like this that is pretty simple you often times have pieces that look the same. All four of these look the same, these look the same, right? But, in order for you to be able to puzzle it back together and assemble it you can't always interchange these pieces. A lot of that just has to do with the human error of the fact that it is something we do with our own hands and our drawing isn't always perfect, our cutting isn't always perfect. So, you do want to make sure you number each one, and I am just going to do that right now. I'm just going to number them one, two, three, four, five, six, let's see it's going to be seven, eight. I'll call this nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. So just so that I know which is which. And, if I want to I can make another sketch somewhere else that just shows how they are all laid out. Or, if you have your pattern you can make a Xerox of it and just make sure you have that off to the side so you know how they go together. Basically, you do want to number the pieces of your pattern because the next thing we are going to do, after we decide what colors they are going to be, is cut all these pieces out and make a big puzzle out of it."