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Handbuilding in the Kitchen
With only two or so weeks until Christmas, I wanted to get in one more batch of pottery for the year. Since the pottery wheel is currently covered in Speckled Brownstone clay, and all I have left to use is Little Loafers, which is a white clay, I’ve moved back to handbuilding inside. I know I could just clean the studio, but baby, it’s cold outside! After glazing 75 ornaments in the last batch, I wanted quick, less tedious work…
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Making Ceramic Ornaments with Cookie Cutters
For several years now, we have made Christmas ornaments from clay. Last weekend I brought my supplies into the kitchen to finish up a couple requests from friends, and my kids descended on the makeshift workspace and demanded clay and all my tools. After a morning of wresting on the living room floor and failed attempts at controlling the noise level in the house, the silence that their focus on the clay brought was amusing, even if it took me five times longer than…
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Frosty Garden
It was a frosty morning in the garden! I guess it is time to start popping the D3 supplements because it is way too chilly to sit outside with my sleeves rolled up. Pictured below are oregano, some type of choi (bok? pak? I dont’ know), and triple curled kale. Last week, the basil, beans, peppers and cherry tomatoes (the last bit of summer still holding on) permanently bit the dust, so now there’s a good bit of open space on the…
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Pottery and Pinguecula
About two months ago I tried my hand at the pottery wheel after not working with clay for nearly eight months. The next week my eye flared up. After a busy summer and fall at the wheel in 2013, my eye had given me trouble but had cleared up when I quit working with clay. Steroid eye drops helped during that season, but the flare-ups only went away after extended time away from the wheel. After having it flare up again at the end…
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2014
While I’d love to get all reflective about 2013 and wax eloquent on the coming year, my brain just isn’t going there. Here goes the Engineer’s version of the first blog post of the year. Engineers like lists and bullet points. Changes ahead this year: Adding a new class to my spring semester schedule Scaling back on the pottery hobby due to time constraints and other commitments The “baby” no longer naps Started a Facebook group for Raleigh growers to…
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Making a Bead Tree for the Kiln Part Two
I posted “Making a Bead Tree for the Kiln” back in March. It worked pretty wonderfully until my three year old broke it, twice over, by knocking it off the table and onto the garage floor. It is still usable, but with that long span between the remaining supports, the nichrome wire tends to sag. I decided to build a new one, and it’s currently waiting to be fired. One of the troubles with the last design was that it required loading…