Tag: pottery

Knitting

Completed Pot Projects

mud&stringLeave a comment

POTS

I finally was able to squeeze a little time in yesterday to go check on my pots and was pleasantly surprised that two of the three were out of the kiln and ready to come home.

This pot is my favorite so far.  It’s the first one where I just let my hands do the thinking and creating.  I love the way it just happened.

Glazed with silver-gray, in and out, with a Carolina Blue rim dip

Next up is a raku pot with Blue-Green Crackle and Hawaiian Blue Matte

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth.  The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.  Carl Jung

B

Knitting

Promised Pots

mud&stringLeave a comment

RAKU

Here are the pots I promised yesterday.

Before firing –

After firing

  Looks like blue poo.

  Biggest, lamest acorn on the planet.

JOSIE SAYS HEY

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.  John Gardner

B

Knitting

Eat Your Heart Out Smoky

mud&stringLeave a comment

HOT

Pottery class today and raku.  Remembered the camera, girl reporter on the story.

Raku kiln, top off

Leslie handling the high tech stuff.

Yeah, pretty much what it looks like – a blowtouch sitting on some bricks.  It’s lit, btw.

This is what 1800 degrees F looks like.  Camera lens fog.

We’re going in!

Pot show and tell tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

Come on, baby, light my fire.  Try to set the night on fire.  Jim Morrison

B

Knitting

Completely Consumed

mud&stringLeave a comment

WHERE’VE I BEEN?

Since getting the sewing machine up and running a couple of weeks ago, I’ve had a difficult time staying away from it.  There’s always a new project that beckons me to at least try it and once on that ride, I’m powerless to stop until I’ve a) mastered whatever it is or b) given up for the moment because I just. can’t. figure. it. out. and am frustrated nearly to tears.  All this means that I’ve let a couple of things go in the last week or so, mainly stuff like sweeping or vacuuming, washing dishes or unloading the dishwasher.  It’s now oozed over into blog time but I’m here this morning to change that.  With that said, here’s a look at my newest obsession hobby,

Up until now, all my sewing stuff was thrown into a plastic bin, which was to be avoided at all costs.  If I was to be serious about learning to sew, I needed to upgrade my kit and found these sweet baskets at Hobby Lobby yesterday.  With everything sorted and untangled, I feel like a real, live seamstress!

My first FO on the machine –

Just don’t ask how long it took.

POTS

Tomorrow’s Monday which means pottery class.  Yay!  Raku tomorrow!

If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.  Ivan Turgenev

B

Knitting

Up and Running Once More

mud&stringLeave a comment

A BUMP IN MY BLOG

We lost our internet Tuesday evening and all day yesterday.  Very frustrating.  I’m way more invested in the internet than I thought.  No e-mail, no google, no blog, no nothin’.  I see if I ever decide to go ‘net free, I’ll need to be weaned off, no way I’m going cold turkey!  It comforts me to know, though, that I’m in the same boat with probably a zillion others.  😉  Oh, I almost forget to tell you the reason.  Our neighbor was having fax issues, ATT came out, fixed his fax feed and didn’t bother reconnecting what he had to disconnect.  Jeez.

SOFT STUFF

The alpaca roving that I ordered from Dyeing for Color finally arrived and has exceeded all my expectations.  It’s like spinning a cloud.  I’ve knitted with alpaca yarn but have never actually seen and been able to fondle roving.  I keep petting it.

These babies are staying in their bags until two seconds before I spin so I can continue to marvel at how soft and clean they are!  I’m beginning to feel that their destiny is to be sock yarn.

ON THE NEEDLES

No knitting to post today.  Oh yeah, it’s out there, lots of WIPs, very few FOs, just not quite camera ready and besides that, I’d have to go through the house, gathering up each room’s project.  Yeah, I work on different projects in different rooms.  Don’t judge me 🙂

POT PROJECT

When we had that little snafu with the internet, I was in the middle of posting a pottery WIP so I had to postpone until today.  This is a molded bowl and I can’t wait to get it out of the damp box and get it out of the bowl mold.

It still needs some work, as you can tell.  That may be a good project for tomorrow.

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.  Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.  Gloria Steinem

B

Knitting
mud&stringLeave a comment

THAT GIANT SUCKING SOUND

is time going down the drain as I’ve been wrestling with widgets.  No joke, I started trying to get some new media buttons up and running on this blog on Saturday, though I really can’t swear to it, since it’s all sort of run together as far as time is concerned.  Since I’m technochallenged, it may take me hours to figure out how do one thing.  When the support tutorials start talking about plugins, downloads and zip files, they lose me because I don’t have any kind of grasp on computerese, I just don’t know what they’re talking about and am totally intimidated.  No matter, today,  I finally got things just the way I want them and  can start obsessing over something else.  I’d love to have some feedback, let me know what you think.

POTTING

Monday is pottery class day, with much anticipation during the week.  I enjoy everyone – including Teach (as Leslie refers to her), we laugh A LOT and talk A LOT, all while working with clay, stretching it, extruding it, rolling it and yes, sometimes beating it into submission.  I’m going to raku the pot below, firebug that I am.  Can’t wait!

Same pot, other side.

WTH?

Me and about a million other people are having Flickr issues.  Can’t upload, queue frozen on iPhone.  See above paragraph.

I’m linking up with Frontier Dreams KCCO today.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.  The important thing is to not stop questioning.  Albert Einstein

Knitting

WIPW 7/24/13

mud&stringLeave a comment

ON THE NEEDLES

A couple of things at the moment.  First up is Hermione’s Everyday Socks for me.  Still really liking the Premier Yarns Wool Free yarn.  This colorway is called Vegas Lights.  Just a few more rows and it will be heel turn time.

Next, the promised entrelac has been started.  This yarn is Lion Brand Fisherman Wool, the original color was sort an oatmeal heather.  It’s been dyed with Kool-aid, a combination of Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade and Cherry.

   The color did something interesting.  The oatmeal/beigey color is a grayish, light taupe now.  Much, much better.  Really, it reminds me of the Shibui Poodle Skirt yarn I used for a pair of socks a couple of months ago.

IHEARTPOTTERY

After a few hiccups with glazing, this plate finally came out of the kiln and was better than I had hoped.  The glaze is Rhodes Turquoise for the bottom 2/3 and Green Gloss for the top 1/3.  I’m really happy with the combination of glazes in the middle.  I’ve had a hard time with the glazing, it’s really not my favorite thing and I tend to rush through without much thought and consequently, the glaze really isn’t as uniform as I’d like it to be.  There are missed spots and drips.  A little more attention to detail would go a long way in the difference between a good glaze and a great one.  My mantra from here on out is, “take your time, where’s the fire?”

Windchime experiment also went well, aside from glazing hiccups.  They chime better than I thought they would but it’s definitely different from a glass, metal or wood chime.  The  spur of the moment ivy stamp makes me very happy.  I love the rustic look of this!

Linking up with the usual bunch for WIPW – Tami, Frontier Dreams KCCO and Ginny’s Yarn Along.  Inspiration central!

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.  Thomas A. Edison

B

Knitting

A Jump, Rule Change, Sad Plate

mud&stringLeave a comment

GETTING A JUMP

I’ve decided to try to get a jump on Mondays by getting a few things accomplished on Sunday night.   Mondays have metamorphosed into a way crazy day – class from 9 to 12 in the mornings (which you can bet on winding up around 1 instead), laundry, errands that should have been taken care of over the weekend but didn’t and then the miscellaneous stuff that catches you by surprise – like trips to the vet, Hobby Lobby (which technically is a fun trip), phone calls, service calls, etc.  Then you count the time that I spend totally obsessed with whatever I’m obsessing about on that particular day.  Yesterday was the sewing machine.  Got my little pocketbook made, all it needs is a shoulder strap and lining; will post when totally complete.  As an aside – I think I’m going to really like this sewing thing.  I plan to check out some patterns for crafty things on my next HL run.

MEANWHILE

I’m a little embarrassed that it has taken me three days to complete this post.  I’ve made a decision to totally consign Mondays as Get Absolutely, Positively, Nothing Done Day.  With pottery class really from 8:30 to 1:00, there’s just not a whole lot of day left to tackle anything larger than maybe loading and/or unloading the dishwasher or doing a load or two of laundry.  This means I’m letting myself off the hook for things that can wait until another day or maybe even be scrubbed from the to-do list that I always have going.  I think I’m going to reinstitute a rule I had when my kids were growing up, the rule that says unless there’s blood or vomit involved, I don’t want to know about it.  Yes, there are exceptions, but that’s pretty much how it always went down.  And ya know what?  My kids survived and even thrived.

GOING POTTY

I’m calling this poor, sad, not round and not even oval, plate “The Plate Only A Mother Could Love”.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion.  These three are your greatest treasures.  Lao Tzu

B

Knitting

When Pots Speak

mud&stringLeave a comment

LEARNING

I’ve been heavily involved these past few days, checking out Google +, playing around with it and generally trying to get a feel for the site.  I really like the idea, sort of a Pinterest/Facebook hybrid, I really don’t facebook much, would I use Google + more and is it easier to navigate?  That remains to be seen, admittedly I’m more than a little technophobic and slow on the uptake when it comes to computer stuff.  I prefer things to stay pretty much the same, I tend to melt down when something computeresque changes, even small things like layout and upgrades and it takes me forever to finally get comfortable with whatever changes happen.  Slow, slow, slow in the computer literacy department.

GOING POTTY

Awesome pottery class this morning.  I started a coiled pot Saturday afternoon, had to put it aside when the studio closed and then my mom had a small issue Sunday, she’s OK, but I wasn’t able to get back to work on it until class this morning.  I’ve fallen completely in love with this pot; my instructor says I may have found my pottery “calling”, coils.  I don’t know about that, there a lot of things/techniques I’ve never tried, but I am loving this pot.

I put the water bottle next to it so you could get an idea of its size, it’s not huge, but it’s the biggest thing I’ve done so far.

The soft square shape just sort of happened.

You can get a better idea of its shape here.

It’s finished and is in the damp box awaiting bisquing next week.  This pot just happened, I had no plan or even any idea in my head,  then, today, I knew when it was finished, don’t ask me how I knew, but I did.  And no, I’m not hearing voices – yet.  🙂

ON THE NEEDLES

Mr. Iknead’s socks are still a WIP, but the heel turn is finished and gusset started on one and the 75% Medano Bag was finished this afternoon.  I’ll show and tell it for sure on Friday.  In the meantime, I’m trying as hard as I not to be seduced by the patterns in the newest Vogue Knitting, don’t know if I can resist…..

OOPS

Almost forgot, I’m linking up with Frontier Dreams Keep Calm and Craft On today.  Check out the Flickr KCCO group.  Very cool!

Learn to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.  Jim Rohn

B

Knitting

Acorns, Pot and Clunk

mud&stringLeave a comment

GOING POTTY

I had a touch of bad attitude Sunday, just feeling tired and overwhelmed – I suppose I finally ran out of adrenaline after running on it all week, so I took a field trip to the pottery studio for a couple of hours.  After some enthusiastic wedging, I settled down and began a new coiled pot.  Class meets this morning, so I’ll get some feedback on what works and what doesn’t on this particular project.  I remembered to bring the fancy camera to take a photo of the acorn I started last week.

It needs a little fine tuning, I think.

Trying to decide, should I glaze true to nature or go for something more whimsical, like blue or purple?

A peek at the pot I started Sunday.  I can’t decide if it needs a little fine tuning or not.

Clunks for a windclunk I randomly started

(I call them clunks because they don’t chime like glass, they clunk)

After glazing with Rhodes Turquoise

Excited to see their true color after firing!

ON, THEN OFF THE NEEDLES

I swatched the handspun yesterday, take a look –

I’ll keep practicing.

Very little is needed to make a happy life.  Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations

B

Knitting

Raku

mud&stringLeave a comment

POTTERING AROUND

Today was the next to last pottery class for the Spring quarter and we tried our hand at raku for the first time, a really neat technique that uses special glazes, a special kiln and the coolest thing of all, putting the pot into a container right out of the kiln lined with newpaper or sawdust so that it flames up and completes the firing.   You have to wear special gear, gloves and something like a welder’s mask to protect yourself from the kiln’s heat, about 1800 degrees F.  You have to use long tongs to handle the pots after firing.  Can you tell I have a little firebug in me?  Here’s my first raku pot –

First Raku, 06/03/13

I’m retaking the Basic Handbuilding class this summer, just to have a good handle on the basics, hopefully to try the pottery wheel in the fall.  So loving this!

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.  Henry James

B

Knitting

Mug Shot

mud&stringLeave a comment

SHOW AND TELL

First Pottery Class Mug!

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the glazing color changes.  Would you believe that the stain and glaze were both green?  I kinda like the surprise outcome!  I especially love the drippy rim inside.

One joy dispels a hundred cares.  Confucius

B