Lifting the lid

As promised, this week is all about pottery. My other love after yarn and knitting. (This is a rather poor combination since working with clay is hard on your hands and working with yarn doesn't go well when your hands are scaly!)

No sponsorship deals are behind this: If you don't have a parafin bath for your hands, you should. It is the secret to my success.

My latest adventures have been in creating hand-thrown buttons. Big, lovely, unique buttons.

These came out of the kiln last week. High fire glazes are a constant surprise. You can know the glaze, know the chemistry behind it, have used it hundreds of times and never get what you expect. The red button in the bottom right corner is a green glaze. A lovely, soft jade colour. Yup. When I try to get a red glaze, well let's not discuss that...

Those button-y beauties are even now winging their way to Castle Fibers for her nefarious purposes. More are in the works, keep and eye out - I might even sell some!

Something else I've been working on are some fancy yarn bowls. Not the standard bowl that you see floating around pottery studios but something prettier. Something that would look more like a candy bowl to the non-knitter, something worthy of your side table.

Here are two views:

See the clever, worm-like cleft to allow your precious yarn escape it's housing?

Then see it from the other side and (to me at least) it looks like it holds treats. Of course it does hold treats but not the kind to satisfy a sweet tooth.

Note the red. Yup, that should be that lovely jade green. The knob on the top turned out to look so very much like the top of an apple, I couldn't resist finishing the look. The red is just as lovely, and surprising.

Another variety of yarn-holder in trials looks more like a cake stand - for a cupcake! Sadly, this one developed a crack and some warping in the final firing. Another eternal risk for the potter. The instructors and artists at the studio have these failures as well so if someone who's been doing this for 35 years still has it happen, it's an acceptable risk to run.

This kiln had a lot of my work in it and there is so much more. Some the pieces are already packed up for safety so will have to wait til next month for a public airing. My biggest piece to date emerged, glorious and huge. It's a footed bowl, like a big petaled flower on a sturdy stalk, and is just over a foot tall and at least that wide, probably more. You'll just have to come back to see it!

Here's one last piece for you to see. There is no sense of scale (bad photography - I'm still learning) but the bowl is about 8" tall. Perfect for a big fruit salad to share with friends.

The projects waiting to be fired at the end of June are so exciting. I'm looking forward to doing another pottery post in July after I'm settled in and the last kiln of the summer is unloaded. I've been working on some replicas of Viking-age cooking pots. So far, they are stunning and will be so much fun to cook in at the Hjemkomst Viking Village weekend exposition.

Next week, costuming!