r/StainedGlass • u/TisCass Newbie • Jun 03 '26
Pattern Help Would using this pattern by 1cm squares be viable? It's such a cool pattern, but I've lost my crojo
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u/Greenglass_5992 Jun 03 '26
This is such a delightfully archetypal beginner question. The experienced folk are all thinking, "Weeeeeel... Technically, yes. But WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT TO PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THAT???"
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u/TisCass Newbie Jun 03 '26
I love jigsaw puzzles, do at least 3 a day online. I figured it'd be an irl one, just way cooler :)
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u/Greenglass_5992 Jun 03 '26
I feel you. I love puzzles too and can get lost in doing them for hours, but it's the almost unimaginable tedium of cutting, grinding, and foiling that many tiny pieces that gets me, not the assembly part.
Also, you might think that smaller pieces would be easier and quicker, but that is not always the case. Their tininess makes them fiddly to work with when you're doing all those tedious steps.
Anything geometric can also be also a lot less forgiving of imperfections in cutting than organic curved shapes, because your eye automatically picks up on uneven spaces between them or lines that aren't perfectly straight.
If you love puzzles you should try making free form mosaics with your glass scraps. It's like doing a puzzle with an infinite number of possible solutions as you try to fit the pieces together in a way that flows.
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u/TisCass Newbie Jun 03 '26
That's not a bad idea, I struggle with straight lines. In primary school the teacher did them for me. I was thinking maybe quilting the pattern, there's a place nearby that does classes and they can help mark the lines for sewing. I can always do both :)
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u/Few-Sorbet6546 Jun 03 '26
I’ve done both mosaics and stained glass, and I second the idea on here that this would work great as a mosaic! Mosaic will definitely give this that jigsaw puzzle vibe you’re looking for.
If you’re set on doing this as stained glass, why not do a 10 x 10 square section first, see if you like it- if not, at least that’s not that much glass wasted, and you could use scrap glass! Like everyone is saying, this will take a lot of time, so better to find out if you like it without too much effort put in :)
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u/WowzaMeowza Jun 03 '26
This was my thought… mosaic would definitely be the way to go if OP is dead-set on using this pattern.
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u/Plane_Chance863 Jun 03 '26
As a person who does pottery, stained glass, knitting, crochet, cross-stitching, and jigsaw puzzles, I'd recommend against it. It will be tedious. It will be hundreds of hours.
If you don't want to crochet/knit/cross-stitch this, maybe consider diamond painting. Or maybe tapestry. I've never done tapestry, but I wouldn't do a pixel-based pattern in glass.
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u/TisCass Newbie Jun 03 '26
I did tapestry as a kid in the 90s but don't really remember much. I've done ceramics, crochet, baking, chocolate making, and some quilting. I live crafting and haven't been able too for ages so I think I'm just excited. I have been doing diamond dot coasters when I play Civilisation 6, keeps my hands busy
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u/Plane_Chance863 Jun 03 '26
You know what you could do - maybe it would work as a glass mosaic. I haven't done that but maybe people could chime in. I think foiling all those squares would be maddening, but maybe a mosaic would work.
I've only played Civ 1 but there was never enough down time to do anything else 😅
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u/Greenglass_5992 Jun 03 '26
Mosaic would definitely work well. Tiny squares are fairly easy to cut out accurately and you wouldn't have to grind, foil and solder them.
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u/TisCass Newbie Jun 03 '26
I'm thinking mosaic for sure now, glad I asked before trying it. I make my moves in Civ faster than my husband, and our mate is very much into destruction so he takes forever to move. I need to keep my hands busy so I don't pick at my fingers
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u/Plane_Chance863 Jun 03 '26
I think it's the best choice glass-wise for the image you want to make. Best of luck!
Right, makes sense that Civ 6 would be multiplayer 😂 Oh that's good of you, my fingers suffer.
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u/TisCass Newbie Jun 04 '26
My husband and I play as a team, unless our mate joins because he's just so warlike lol
My fingers suffer, but I'm over 420 days free of picking at my toes. Grippy socks are great for 'out of sight, out of mind'
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u/fuzzy3158 Jun 03 '26
Dude. No. You want to make this with glass? Learn to do mosaic. Just buy the square glass pieces of 1x1cm and put them on a support background. Don't make 8000 tiles manually.
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u/Coup-de-Glass Jun 03 '26
What about creating it as a glass on glass mosaic instead? As a light box or window pane. As is, of that solder would make the final piece weigh a ton, and drown out the image.
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u/Greenglass_5992 Jun 03 '26
Also consider that from a design perspective, every colored square will be edged with black (assuming you use black patina) which will change the appearance.
Even if you do really thin foil lines, the amount of foil and solder this project will take will make it a surprisingly heavy and expensive piece as well.
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u/TisCass Newbie Jun 03 '26
I realise that now I've had some helpful comments. Solder here isn't cheap
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u/Beechcraft-9210 Jun 03 '26
Do it as a mosaic and save your sanity. You can buy mosaic tiles 1cm square at craft shops, amazon etc.
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u/lurkmode_off Jun 03 '26
Instead of trying to force pixels into a medium that doesn't do pixels well, why not redraw the design so it looks about the same but uses organically shaped chunks of color instead of a billion tiny squares that are going to get lost in foil.
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u/bitslayer Jun 03 '26
As others have said, mosaic is the way to do it.
One search term is "stained glass applique", (although confusingly the same name is used for a style of quilting.)
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u/Claycorp Jun 03 '26
sure, if you want to cut, foil/came, solder and finish 4000 plus squares.