I started grinding the rest of the 4th panel that I had cut out last week, and found that my 1/4" grinder bit (used for small or sharply interior curves) had been stripped of a great swathe of diamond grit. Off to the glass store for me, and I've got a brand new grinder now, my first in over a decade. I like it muchly. Finished grinding, finished foiling while watching 5 shows' worth of this season's The Dead Zone, and soldered it Saturday morning on the shady front porch. Behold:

As I started cutting the fifth panel, I realized that I might run into problems of not having enough glass, especially since I was getting my "light green" and "dark green" from the same square foot piece. So I ended up cutting both remaining panels at once, which saves time and ensures I'll have enough left of the correct colors. Here's how much I've gotten done on panels five and six:

I'm pleased by this week's progress, especially since I took the Monday holiday off. The bad news is all this cutting up front, though efficient, means a lot of time doing nothing but stand at the grinder later on. My feet are already unionizing and threatening to walk off the job, and the Achilles tendon of my right ankle is just waiting to stage a sympathy strike. We shall see.


I received my first swap of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume oils yesterday. I have an extremely sensitive nose, but I was lured in by the universal disdain the BPAL addicts seem to have towards "department store perfume", which generally makes me want to demand that the person go take a bath with Ivory soap, and have some bloody consideration for others before they go out in public with that stuff on.

I'm heartened to find that of the 2 full and 5 "empty" sample vials I got, none of them are nauseating, singly or in combination in the very smelly mailer they came in. Twilight (lavender, jasmine, honeysuckle) was much too cloying on me, and Hanging Garden (date palm, ebony, fir, pomegranate, plum, peas, quince, fig, and grapevine with plumeria, three gardenias, and dry rose) was a non-cloying floral that seemed to be powdery (but not baby-powder-y) on me. Kinda distressing that both smelled so much better in the vial than on me, but I shall not draw conclusions from a sample of 2 when the lab makes something like 300 oils. I have high hopes for Morocco, which in the vial smells like incense and spices... once these florals are completely gone from my person, I'll try to coax enough out of that "empty" to give it a skin test.

My smell-containment precautions seem to be working pretty well... a light-protective plastic blue box inside an airtight food-storage container. Swabbing everything down with the 70% isopropyl alcohol I keep in my stained glass supplies, the smell leakage has been very minimal. Darn oils get everywhere if you're not careful though, so I'm being extremely careful. I have one more swap and one BPAL lab order incoming, but I'm keeping in mind that I may hit my tolerance limit for playing with smellies.

Am already plotting the making of lotions to put in cute vials and give to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for Christmas, since they're always giving me inappropriately personal gifts like a satin bathrobe or a set of dishes (what, did she think we eat straight from the pan or leftovers box?). If they don't like the smells I pick, well, thpppt to them.


The ambient stress levels here in the US of A are really high right now, so everybody try to have a relaxing week. Be good to the family and friends around you, and let the rest of the world sort itself out. Kindness ripples. Bring into the world something that didn't exist before you put your hands or your mind to it... write a fic; knit a scarf; make something, even if it's "just" love. =P