new clay

This is the new French clay, you can see how the colour, from vegetable matter, changes as it dries.   It fires to a pale creamy colour.    It is dug and sieved..that is all! I'm not sure if it has had a little grog added after that, as it does have a few issues with occasional larger pieces and some bits of yellow ochre.
However it throws, dries, turns and cuts well.
We'll have to discuss the economics of it later!!

 Grey cat guarding grey clay pots!!


These are the two pots that I had in "The Rocket"- apparently the jug was judged best pot in the firing!!  It has come out nicely I must admit. They were very kindly delivered to the Court Cupboard Gallery where I worked my duty day yesterday.

We didn't have too many visitors, despite the beautiful hot and sunny weather, but that did give me the time to put up a new stand with glass shelves and display a different selection of my work...and write out a new stock list!!    It looks good (sorry, I forgot to photograph it!) lets hope it boosts sales.

new ideas

stacking cups?
Very atmospheric...also cold and damp!!

speeding up!

This week so far!
The middle board has finished items on it, the rest are from the past two days.

I started yesterday with turning and cutting feet
with knobs on!!
Just blue slip inside this 2kg bowl. I didn't think that it needed any image inside.
Dried pots in the kiln, out of the way and out of harm's way!
One builder's bucket of recycling! I don't usually let it build up this much. The next bucketful is on its way already as I had a plastic clay bag of dried trimmings ready to slake down.
It was fine until 3pm today and pots were drying well, now it is giving very fine rain showers. So no gardening yet.
If it is raining tomorrow morning I'll do some light turning, to give my hands a rest.

a bitty day

I did a bit of housework this morning.

Then we had the allotments committee meeting -which left no time before lunch for gardening except a bit of seed sowing in the greenhouse.

After lunch and taking Mountain Man home, I managed a bit of throwing!!
Then I kneaded a bit more clay, ready for tomorrow.

Now I'm off to do a bit of knitting...which tends to send me to sleep!

Bit of this, bit of that.

Meanwhile it has been a beautiful day, even if the breeze was chilly, and the Moon is huge!!