now with 100% less blood…. I’ve made actual stained glass before, it was fun and the result was super neat but also not something I’d do again due to the ammount of cuts on my hands it gave me.
I’m going to use US 8/0 (0.5mm) needles, either Goldschild black linen thread in size 100/3 (26 wpcm/ for lace making) or DMC perle 8 (17 wpcm; 12 would probably be better but I don’t have any),
and my current 15/0 bead collection (it will get larger and probably quite rapidly, I just got a job at a bead store…. )
For inspiration I’m going to be going to the Internet Archive:
International Glass Catalogue, 1914
Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, ~1900
Relevant pages 254-304 are gorgeous full, bright color examples
Roach & Musser Sash and Door Co, Complete Catalogue 1905
Relevant pages 380-398 are more pastel but still full color examples
For some basic warm-ups in terms of cable outlines, the International art glass catalogue has a bunch of leaded clear glass. To get started I’m going to be turning a couple of these into cable knitting patterns, which will be the ‘lead’ for more complex beadwork1.
The slip sts should allow for essentially a longer knit stitch that can move over 1 st while covering 2 rows, although I haven't tried this out yet.
1053
Working along, just to show part of the process, once im almost done with the design I need to ‘pass’ the chart check.
nope
better
final2
1149
easy
I am currently working on 1152 and plan to move on to some more advanced ones. I'll also need to double check that the stitches will work the way I want them to, however I have a ton of projects going on right now so that will have to wait a bit.
1152
1181
Now for one that I'm going to try to complete. Although not with the beads just yet as I'm planning on using the same yarn as my stained glass windows pattern and I'm currently on vacation so I don't have my beads with me.
I'm going to add a page for unique stitches related to this pattern at some point, the descriptions on my key isn't very descriptive.
The written explination got way too long way to fast so it will now be here.
For some more advanced warm-ups pages 294 to 298 in the Pittsburgh plate glass company are just the outlines3 for windows without the colorwork. Just looking at these I am going to need to learn how to do the joined loop cable technique.
C 308:
C 297:
Last updated: May 26, 2025; additional updates to follow
- As much as I like not using a cable needle, it will be necessary for more complex patterns. ↩︎
- Some of the stitch definitions for the charts might not be quite right, here my main goal is more of what the chart looks like as I am an advanced enough knitter to figure most of it out. ↩︎
- I think these would have been carved into the glass itself for a beveled effect not leaded for stained glass but idk, they’re close enough for this purpose. ↩︎
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