Round windows

Circles have no beginning and no end.

I really enjoy making circular windows and use a couple of different techniques to lead and solder them together. I have begun in the middle and also at one ‘corner’ as if making a traditional square window. I find it much harder to control the shape when starting in the middle.

I have read the book ‘Rose windows’ by Painten Cowen (1979) cover to cover and am still none the wiser as to which technique is correct. I am not making windows of such mammoth proportions as to fill a cathedral rose so it probably doesn’t matter.

This week I have started to make an oval window in a rather modernists Bauhaus style. The Bauhaus stained glass workshop never really got off the ground due to lack of orders and closed in 1925, quite possibly because of the post-war lack of money and the rise in art deco style at the time.