Studio time...

We've had a busy past few months, and our fair share of ups and downs, but just this past couple of weeks or so, since Christmas and the school holidays, things seem to tentatively be looking up. It's still too early, too fragile, to think much of this in the long term, because we've been here before, and this is bug season, and the school term has only just begun, but we are feeling hopeful and just a little lighter, so we are trying to just enjoy this for now.

In the spirit of this uplift I've clocked some much-needed pottery studio time. I've been dreadfully slow with this, because I knew my next task was glaze testing, and there always seemed to be some reason or other to delay - it was too cold (but my new heater is in now, so this is not an excuse anymore), I didn't have enough time to get started (mixing glazes is time-consuming), I am still waiting for some glaze component or other to arrive in the mail (it's amazing how much stuff you need if you are testing, because there are so many different ways of putting together a working glaze), my studio is too chaotic (this was a bit of an issue for a while, because stuff had migrated in there on a temporary basis, but it's mostly sorted now)... So many excuses!

There are still fairly important things to sort out to make my little studio space work - I don't have a source of running water, so that is an issue,  because I don't like the idea of bringing potentially toxic pottery materials into the house via brushes or buckets. We are now considering installing a washing-up sink outside with a trap to catch heavy particles that I don't want going down the drain. Hopefully this summer...  I also need to repaint the concrete floor in my pottery space, because it's crumbling and therefore generating dust. This also does not allow me to mop the floor, meaning that any spillages will also dry and generate dust, which is a potential health hazard, particularly long-term. I also want to paint the brick-work on the walls because I get so much dirt falling down and contaminating my work space.

That said, it's a good little studio by now. My lighting is sorted out, and I have my awesome little heater, which means I feel less like an extra from La Boheme when I'm working in there at any time other than high summer.

I've even managed to get some of the dreaded test glazes mixed up the other day and I managed to pour only half a bucket of glaze over myself. I call that a win!

Now hopefully one of these testers will generate the glaze that I'm after, because I'm still struggling with that. I want a pure white glossy glaze that covers well and doesn't break over the edges of the little houses that I make. Once I've achieved that I want to make a big badge of glaze and create enough houses to put on Etsy or Folksy to sell so my pottery endeavours become a bit more cost-neutral at least.

I even managed to motivate boy #2 to help me paint the planters that he got for his birthday so they can be moved out of my studio onto the patio. Boy#2 is our green-fingered child, and he loves planting things, so we are hoping to grow some vegetables in his new boxes.

 

Glaze Firing...

It's been a long time since I've done a glaze firing. I did a couple of biscuit firings but that meant that things were really piling up in the workshop and I was pretty much running out of space to even put things down. I needed to get on with it and glaze some things so I could make some room, you know? 

Glazing is not my favourite task. I obviously love the look of nicely glazed ceramics, but it's such a fiddly job, and so prone to going wrong, that I dread it just a little, because the danger of ruining a much-loved item is so very real. 

Take that, and add to it that glazing materials are hazardous and best not used around children, and you've got the perfect playground for some heavy procrastination. ;)    It's taken me months to get to the point where I could shut the heavy kiln door and programme my controller.

That said, once it's done and everything is loaded, it's all very exciting. A kiln firing takes a good 12 hours, and after that it takes another 48 hours or so for the kiln to cool down to ambient so it can be opened safely and without danger of cracking any pottery or glazes due to thermal shock. That's a whole lot of nervous waiting, because you never quite know what you are going to find once you crack that kiln door open - is it all going to  be shattered, or will it have worked?!

This firing was to stoneware,1220 degrees C. I switched the kiln on at around 8am in the morning and because Betty is quite an old kiln I checked on her several times that day to see if she was doing her job. She was, and by the afternoon when I checked once more, there was the tell-tale glow from the air hole at the top where I'd removed the bung to help the kiln breathe. Can you see it? 

Closer look...

The temperature at that point was 1147 degrees and rising.

It's always fascinating to me how the inside of the kiln starts to glow once it gets to the really high temperatures. This is the glow through one of the ceramic bungs in the door, which, by the way, are not normally transparent. 

Betty reached temperature at around 8pm that evening and then started to cool down. It was a loooong wait, because after the initial fairly quick drop in temperature down to around 600 degrees, which she managed overnight, things slowed down and it took a further day and a half to get to around 45 degrees, at which point I couldn't take it anymore and cracked the kiln door open. It was still a little early, and there were a few ominous pings (that's the glaze cracking...), but nothing too dramatic happened, and I don't have anything in there where a few minor cracks in the glaze should matter in the least. 

I forgot to take a shot of the kiln right when it was opened, so in this picture a few items have already been moved. 

 

Overall it was a  very successful firing, but a few things did go wrong - right on the top shelf I had a big plate that I had glazed in white, with small chips of blue glass to melt in all the little indentations in the plate. That part went well, but apparently I had not taken off enough glaze at the bottom of the plate and the whole thing got stuck to the kiln shelf and, because it couldn't expand and contract the way it needed to during firing, cracked in several places...

Ah well, you win some, you lose some...

On the other hand I had a few things that turned out quite lovely:

I think, overall, I'm pretty pleased with this glaze firing! 

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Pottery Workshop update

Look at those happy hens, enjoying the sunshine! These are our current ladies, Davina (white), Fizz (grey) and Pig(widgeon), and I think they are as happy about a bit of warmth as we are. I counted at least 4 new dust baths in their run just now and they seem very contented indeed. 

We've had a somewhat busy week with all sorts of appointments, so things are a bit slow otherwise, but at least I can report that slowly but surely my very own pottery workshop is coming together. 

A few weeks ago I finally got all my courage (and savings) together and drove to the pottery supplier near here. I'd phoned ahead, so they had got my enormous order of raw materials, glazes, and clay together and I initially stashed it all in the workshop. When the weather got a little warmer I took a proper look at it all and set about decanting everything into more suitable containers. Thank goodness for all the empty yogurt and ice cream buckets that I'd kept. Always worth never throwing anything away, right? 

It all felt quite weird, and also a teeny bit scary, standing there with my big dust mask and disposable gloves on. Most of the materials are OK (even though none of them are exactly healthy to breathe in), but there were also a few more toxic glaze ingredients, and the boys were under strict instructions not to come looking for me...

It's all very exciting. I've even started to mix some glazes and my first batch is ready for testing.

Can you see Betty the big kiln on the right? 

She is STILL not connected. You would not believe the obstacles that we've come up against in our plans to connect her up. Things are looking good, though, and with any luck she should be functional within a few weeks. 

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I haven't had much time for any sustained pottering in recent months, but every so often I spend a few hours, mainly at our dining table. The pottery shed is pretty much functional by now (maybe the topic of another post), and Betty the monumental kiln, although still not connected (looong story mainly to do with electricity supplies and long cables, so pretty boring really), is getting closer to being functional (also perhaps the topic of another post), but it's been cold around here, and if it's cold around here it's always even colder in the pottery shed. D has put an ancient gas heater in there for me but it looks lethal and I'm scared to switch it on and possibly blow myself up in the process... 

So until it gets warmer I prefer sitting in our dining room. Not much dining happens in there anyway, because we mainly eat in the kitchen. And also, the rats live in there now, so really I should call it the 'rat room' (that's again another story - I have quite a selection of future blog posts lined up now!). Anyway, what's a bit of clay between friends (and family, and cats, and rats...)? Sitting in there has the added benefit that I'm not absenting myself entirely from parenting - I can still hear and see everyone, and I can still go and fetch drinks, and food, and look for lost stuff. :)

A little while ago I was experimenting with different textures in clay. I started a vessel at the pottery class I occasionally go to and then I borrowed some plaster moulds to pour slip onto at home so I could finish the project in my own time. The result was this:

It's a stoneware vessel, glazed very simply with cobalt oxide. I absolutely love it. :)

Of how to end an unexpected blogging hiatus...

Hi there? Anybody here?

You can have no idea how often I've thought about blogging these past months and seriously, there must be at least 4 draft posts written that I then never got round to posting and which are now completely out-of-date and obsolete.

I can't even really say why I haven't posted. Sure, things have been BUSY, but the mad busy period led to an extended period of unpaid leave from work, so it should have been possible to get into a normal posting habit again. All I can think of is that it's a matter of routine. Once you are out of the habit of posting regularly it suddenly becomes a BIG THING and you feel you need to dedicate time that you think you don't have, etc. 

All the while I've been missing this little space in which to talk about all the things that make up my life that aren't work. It's healthy, a space like that, and it's good for the soul, because in the end, what it means is that you are taking some time to reflect and to consciously enjoy all the different little things that make up you and your life. 

So new good habits need to be established. Life continues to present us with challenges, but I also need to take time to step back, get back to the things I enjoy and that help me feel calm. 

I am still knitting, and crocheting, and pottering, albeit in spurts - sometimes not much for a few weeks, sometimes frantically, all of the time. Things have been erratic, but I'm also taking steps to pace myself more and to avoid the boom and bust pattern that has snuck in in recent months.

I do have things to show, FOs to present, developments to discuss, but it'll have to wait. Boy #1 and I also have a little photography project going which is part of his CFS treatment - the Happy Moment Photography Challenge. Every day he is supposed to take one picture of something that made him happy, even if just for that moment. In order to support him I've joined in, so I might try to post a few of our pictures here as well.

Just to kick us off and to show that I've not been entirely idle, here are some very very overdue FOs, knitting and otherwise, which I actually finished, not for last Christmas, but the one before!

First up is an oversized super-girly Cowl that I made for my stepmom. 

It was supposed to be a normal cowl, actually, but as I was crocheting this thing grew and grew until it was a monster! It's made with some very fluffy, pink and sparkly novelty yarn that my boys bought for me a few years ago, and which had been sitting in my stash ever since, waiting for the right project to come along. 

My step-mom is very girly (and lovely) - much more girly than I am - and she also likes long walks in the woods. She is also frequently feeling cold, so I thought this would be ideal to keep her warm and snug. :)

I've also managed to snap a quick picture of the finished Ripple Plate that I made for my dad. This thing is huge, so the picture doesn't really do it justice. For scale, imagine that the second ripple from the centre is already larger than an average apple. 

Although not 100% pleased with the glaze, despite re-glazing it 3 (!) times, I am quite happy with the result and it was certainly well received.

As for newer FOs - I'm so pleased with this plate:

To show the size of the plate - this time with some Regia...

This is also a gift and was given to a dear old friend who loves cats.


There are so many other projects to follow, but at least I've made a start and hopefully I can get myself into a better posting habit again. 

Oh what a week...

Oh my, the work just doesn't let up. 

Here I am, on a Bank Holiday weekend, on a Sunday morning, sitting at my laptop, preparing a lecture on the Netflix and the Post-Television environment. It's interesting stuff, but I'd still rather do something else on a Sunday.

It's been quite the week, to be honest. There has been work, of course, and hospital appointments, and pottery, but undoubtedly most exciting is the arrival of Betty:

Isn't she a beauty? 

For ages I used to drive past a little pottery workshop on my way to work. Every time I thought 'one day I'll stop and have a look', but of course I never did. Then, one day, a 'For Sale' sign went up on the house, and, well, I might have panicked a bit, because I HADN'T YET HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK AT ALL THE POTTERY! 

D suggested that I just drive there, not on my way to work, when I'm always too busy to stop, and knock on the door, and well, that's exactly what I did, and let me tell you, I'm so glad I did!

It turned out that the workshop was not currently seeing a lot of use, because S., the potter, had had quite a rough few years, with a few close family losses. Because of that she hadn't done much pottery, and now she was downsizing and moving house. As we were chatting she revealed that she was quite anxious about what to do with her two kilns. Kilns are heavy (very heavy) things, and she wasn't sure who'd take them away for her. She also didn't have room for them in the new workshop she was getting ready, so she wanted to be rid of them.

To keep the story short, she offered me both kilns FOR FREE, as long as I was prepared to have them removed from her workshop. I was speechless.

In the end I convinced L. the potter who runs the pottery classes I attend, to take the gas kiln, which I thought was beyond my capabilities, and I decided to keep Betty, who is an electric kiln. 

So far so good, but as it turns out, getting kilns moved anywhere beyond a few inches is really not an easy thing to organise. Kilns are not only heavy, but fragile - they have brittle fire bricks inside, and they can't be tipped onto their side. The drive leading to the workshop was fairly steep, and made of gravel, both not things that are fantastic for pallet trucks. There were trees overhanging the drive - not great for lorries. 

It took me quite a few weeks to find a local company who was brave enough to take the job on, and let me tell you, getting them out of that workshop, and getting Betty unloaded and into my workshop at home was high drama. Initially two guys turned up with a lorry and a pallet truck, but they had to admit defeat and call in help. In the end it took four men and the pallet truck to shift the kilns out of the workshop and onto the lorry and to unload Betty at our end. Apparently unloading the gas kiln at L's was far less dramatic so I'm sure the poor removal guys were very relieved. 

They did a fantastic job though, and, throughout the ordeal didn't lose their cool or their good humour. If I ever have any other unwieldy items to move I will definitely contact them again! 

Betty needs a bit of work, and she also isn't connected yet. If I get a chance I'll try to get an electrician to connect her up sometime next week, but really, I'm just glad that the move went OK and she is safely tucked up in the workshop. :)

In other news, I've been crocheting a bit. The CAL has started and unlike some other CALs I've taken part in over the years this one has quite a comfortable pace. There are four squares to complete each week, which, despite my crazy workload at the moment, has been just about achievable. It's quite fun so far. :)  

Not the greatest picture and the colours are a bit off, but it's a grey day today so the light isn't fantastic for taking pictures...

Close up of Week One - popcorn stitches

Close-up of Week Two - star stitches (I loved these - so much fun, and the resulting texture is lovely!)

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Just pottering about...

Weekends are just great, aren't they?

We have a ritual here, which starts with coffee and biscuits, while the boys are allowed to watch a programme or two on the laptop, all tucked up together in bed. We usually have a cat or two in there with us too, but the more the merrier! ;)

Weekends are for doing nothing much, for enjoying each other's company, for playing, for pottering... Of course there are things that need to get done (like the laundry - though I have occasionally forgotten about that, which gets a bit awkward on Monday morning when you realise that the school uniforms are non-too-clean...), but most of all it's for doing whatever you think is fun.

This weekend we spent some time allotmenting (I had some fruit bushes to plant), and since the weather was good we also played in the garden quite a bit. I also practiced a bit on my concertina. I'm still very much a beginner, but D managed to accompany me on the Banjo for 'Danny Boy', so that is a minor success. It didn't even sound completely awful! 

Most of all, though, I played with clay. After being so busy for so many weeks it was such a joy to spend a few hours pottering. I made a few houses (a commission for a friend), and then continued right on and made some more. 

And last but not least, I managed to plant up this little fella. 

Isn't his new haircut fetching? So trendy... ;)

He was a bit of an experiment, and because of that he isn't at all tidy. As I was planing I managed to break one of his legs off. Oops! 

I like him, though, and as a proto-type he works well. There will be more like him, I think.

uh uh...

I didn't really mean to disappear like that.

This time of year is... crazy around here. Three kids birthdays, Halloween, St. Nikolaus Day, Christmas with all the family coming... There is a lot going on, and it's been really hard to keep up with everything, you know?

By now we have two of the three kids birthdays behind us, and Halloween is obviously also done, so I can refocus a bit on getting the remaining birthday and the Christmas festivities organised. 

I'm not complaining, really - it's all been great fun, and I'm also very much looking forward to the remaining family parties, but it can be difficult to find time for anything else this time of year. Every week I am determined to at least post a weekly update but well... it's been a while, hasn't it?

That said, I have been working on things. I'm currently in the process of getting Christmas presents on their way, so a lot of my knitting and crafting has been quite focussed on that. Perhaps I'll manage to snap a few shots of the Christmas knitting tomorrow, but for now, just so I can report on something, here is a little snippet of recent pottery projects:

Little ceramic houses for incense cones or tea lights (although probably best with electric ones, because they can get quite hot). Some of those will be presents, others might end up in the Folksy Shop. There are more of them, but this is a selection anyway. :)

Large platter. I glazed this twice - once with Iron Oxide, and then with a top glaze that was called 'Honey'. I really like the depth of the colours this has created.

Vase, lime green on the inside, glossy white on the outside:

That's enough for today, I have to get on with designing photo calendars as stocking fillers for the family...

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WIP update - on a Thursday!

I normally try to update on a Wednesday, but this week is kind of getting away from me. I don't really quite know why, but I feel frazzled and tired and sort of drained. Perhaps I'm coming down with something? Or is it the colder weather that's getting me down? 

On the upside, I do have some progress to report on. I'm still crocheting the Spice of Life, but the fifth pattern piece is a bit of a monster, because it's basically a repeat of all the previous pattern pieces in order to add length to the blanket. Well then... this may take me a while! I'm plodding on with it, but in the meantime I've also been dividing my time between this project and my Christmas present plans, so I've made a pair of fingerless mitts (I'll introduce those tomorrow) and have already cast on for another pair of mitts, this time not fingerless. I am using aran yarn, which makes these projects satisfyingly quick and I'm hoping to crank out this other pair by the end of the week. I'm planning on knitting another pair after that, but I'll stick with these first so I can add them to the 'done' pile and feel good about my progress. :)

The pattern I'm using for these is 'Maize'.

I've also got a whole lot of glazed pottery back this week. Honestly, I had forgotten how much of it there was. I was pleased to see that a lot of it came out looking OK, despite the fact that I'm learning something about myself - I don't enjoy glazing. I find the process kind of tedious but nerve-wrecking at the same time, because you can ruin a perfectly good pot by applying glaze haphazardly. Overall I think I might be more interested in shape than in colour... 

That said, here are a few examples that I felt had turned out well:

And last but not least, the bowls that the boys made and told me to glaze according to their instructions were finished too - they are absolutely thrilled with them. :)

If I continue at this rate I'll run out of room soon, even if I give gifts to family and friends, so my plan is to set up a folksy shop to sell some pieces. 

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Is it Wednesday already?

Time for another Year of Projects update!

I'm lagging behind a bit with my Spice of Life blanket. Not desperately so, but yesterday a new pattern piece was released and I haven't quite finished the previous one yet... It's not too dramatic, though, I 'm only about 6 rows behind and I'm hoping to catch up tonight.

Autumn always seems to fly by around here. It might have something to do with the three (!) kids birthdays, and Halloween, and Nicholas Day and then of course there is Christmas too. We are hosting it this year, and since we are an English/German household this might well mean not one but two celebrations - one on Christmas Eve, as is the German tradition, and another one on Christmas Day. The boys obviously think it's fantastic...

With Christmas in mind I've turned my attention more firmly to Christmas presents. I'd like to give quite a few handmade gifts this year, in particular for my step sisters, because we have agreed to not get into the habit of spending lots on each other. In previous years this has translated into little gift sets of cupcake forms and recipe book, or mug and hot chocolate mix, but once you've done that you can't really gift the same again, can you? 

This year I decided that instead it's going to be pottery and knitting. I've already introduced the chunky hat that I'm hoping to give to one of my stepsisters, and I've also completed my niece's little flower hat:



Boy #1 thinks it's a 'granny hat'. I'm choosing to take no notice...

Yesterday, while binge-watching the work of a director I'm working on (I love my job...) I managed to get a little production line going and made a number of little houses for tea lights or incense cones:

Cute, aren't they? D thinks they look industrial, like old Victorian factory buildings. I quite like the idea. By glazing them in different colours you could achieve a very different look - black or grey for a slightly sinister Halloween look (Haunted House!), or white, for a more Christmassy feel. I think I'll go with white, since they are supposed to be Christmas gifts.

I'm also contemplating a Tunesian Crochet scarf for my step mom. When I opened my email this morning I found an email from Purl Soho with a free pattern for this scarf:

Isn't it lovely? I'm not sure I'll get away without ordering some yarn, since most of the wool yarn that I have left is a bit too scratchy for a scarf, but you never know... 

My dad will also get a handmade gift this year. About 10 years ago, when I last took part in a pottery class, I made a platter which he liked and he asked me if I could make him a bowl that was large enough for his big dining table. I agreed, and then promptly had three babies and went to pottery class no more. ;)  Since I've now taken it up again I thought I was running out of excuses, so I made this bowl:

I wanted to recreate the ripple effect you get when water drops into a still pool. I'm hoping to glaze it a simple matt white and have already ordered some glaze for it. Unfortunately, when I rang Potclays this morning to enquire why they hadn't sent the glaze yet, they informed me that it's out of stock and only expected back in on 21st October, but since right now the bowl is not even fired yet, this shouldn't hold me up too much. Hopefully it will be ready for Christmas!

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