End of The Season

We had the last outdoor Farmers' Market yesterday.  Beautiful weather, so much gorgeous, fresh produce.  Starting next week we'll be indoors at Morris Nursery on Erickson Rd until Dec. 20th.

Fingers to the Bone

The blog's been idling for awhile but I've been bustling.  Between harvesting the abundance that is our garden this year, having visitors, and dealing with some minor renovations there just hasn't been time and not much on the pottery front to report.  But now it's full on clay with a firing in the next few weeks if I could just stop throwing.  Everyday I think "that's it, no more" and then there's the thing I've forgotten that's been promised for the next firing and I'm off again.  But Sunday is really the very last day to throw before the shelf grinding starts.

Trying oval bakers again.  Hopefully these won't crack.

Never seem to have enough oil bottles.

My favourite mug size with the single finger handle.

Really big jugs.

They say you should always have a detail shot.

More butter dishes.

Mixing Clay Again

It's been a busy month with wood splitting and stacking, lots of company, and now clay mixing.  We did all the mixing on Sunday and then one more for good measure this morning before we scooped it into the drying racks.  Less than half an hour later the water was already dripping off.  In about two weeks the top layers will be ready to store.  The bottom ones will take another week.  Then I'll have about 1500 lbs of clay ready to use.  Not bad for 4 1/2 hours work!

This is a lot harder than it looks!  

Filled and covered drying racks.

Puddles from drips from above.

Summer Beauty

The lilies are growing in with the kale and kohlrabi behind an 8 foot fence - the only place safe from the marauding gangs of deer.  I think lilies are their favourites.

Lilies from the garden

Beautiful Ocean Spray

Wood

Yesterday was clear, sunny, and 33 degrees C. (91F).  So of course we spent the entire day splitting wood!  We rented a big log splitter to deal with the up to 24 inch across chunks that our little electric splitter can't handle.  We were up at 5:30 and splitting wood by 6, done by 4.  A very long, sweaty day.

Now we just have to stack it all.

What You Don't See

Normally when you see potters' photos of their work you see the "good ones".  What you don't see very often is the "oh no's".  Here are two of mine.  I tried a number of oval bakers made in the traditional way of cutting the leaf shape out of a round baker and pressing the sides together to make an oval.   All three in this firing cracked.  The firing was also faster and hotter than usual which makes the ash glaze run.  The runs I'll grind and if they're not too ugly on the bottom they might sell as seconds, the cracked bakers go on the shard pile.

I've often had visitors to the studio say that it must be so relaxing to make pots.

More June Pots, No Rant

Ash glazed honey pot

Temmoku cream & sugar set

Shino teapot

Shino honey pot

Red Shino honey pot

A stack of red shino bowls

Tea dust temmoku pasta bowl

Red shino tea pot

Triangular shino jug