It's a small world but I wouldn't like to paint it.

This morning I was flicking through some old glaze notebooks looking for some information that I thought Blogger Andrew might be interested in and I came across this printed sheet I'd obviously used at uni. The word "Shelby" jumped out and I thought oh that's where Blogger Ron lives, on looking more closely (the printing is a bit dodgy on that line) it does actually say "Ron Philbeck of Shelby"! Would you believe it!? That paper must have been in my folder since at least 1999 oh so many years ago.

I was really good today and spent the morning mixing up a new batch of my honey glaze, and that's now soaking before I begin to sieve it. Then I mixed up some trials of new slip colours, it's been on my list of things to do for an age. It'll be interesting to see how they look. Does Chrome react badly under a lead glaze anyone? ( What I mean is will it make it unsafe?)

This afternoon has been a bit slower, I handled all the mugs from yesterday but I've got really sore hands today, my thumbs and all across the back of my hands are very tender and actually a bit painful. Note to self: must take some arnica. So I had a prolonged tea break reading Michael Kline's article on Blogging in my newly acquired Studio Potter magazine.

Outside our cottage this evening.

Lovely views don't you think, going to be a good sunset in a bit. The top one is looking northwest towards the Galloway hills, the middle looking pretty much due south the main hill being Screel (good scramble up there and fab views from the top right over to the Lake District.) The bottom picture is looking over the farm land behind the house towards my workshop. The farm the workshop is on is hidden in the trees behind the very yellow field on the left of the picture.

Mugs.

Back in the workshop after a weekend in the sun and raring to go. Set to with a rack of mugs, it being almost Potfest and me having only a couple of mugs on the shelves at the moment. Then a rack of cereal bowls, always good to have and they'll help me fill the kiln a little quicker.

Very quiet at work today but I did get a visit from friends Su (also a potter) and Suzie (a baker) who came to borrow my wee test kiln and gave me some of their fabulous bread and a great chocolate cake from their bakery in return. Happy Hannah!

Then in the afternoon I did some decorating, the inside of a big bowl which I think I might have made a mess of but I'll see how I feel when I see it tomorrow. Then these three big jars, I only threw three, wish I'd done more really. No idea why I did three, I'd usually throw them in fours as I can fit four of the bats across one shelf. Must have been having an odd day. Never mind. Back to it tomorrow and as it's been a sunny day today hopefully the mugs and bowls will be turn-able and handle-able. Fingers crossed.

Up int thills.

Lovely sunny weekend, had a great walk as I say up int thills near Pebbles on saturday. I had a committee meeting for the Scottish Potters today in Fife so we went up yesterday, camped over and Paul biked today while I worked hard.

Paul was making dinner tonight while I was baking millionaire's shortbread and he made the comment that living in this house is difficult because not only do you have to decide what to make to eat (Vietnamese chicken curry with kumara very damn good actually) but you have to decide on the bowls to serve it in and different little ones for the rice and then on the type of drinking vessel too and boy is there a selection to chose from. I think secretly he enjoys it though.

I decided that six hours was plenty to spend on decorating a jug, oh I really hope it stays in one piece and survives the firings. So it's done now and is sitting out to dry.

The afternoon was spent decorating the puzzle jugs which I really enjoyed, the one above says

"May you always have

love to share,

health to spare

and friends that care."

Slightly odd tulip thing, I was trying to just use the white slip and then a bit of cobalt sneaked in there.

This one I think says

"The day is thine

abuse it not

perhaps tomorrow

commeth not."

I was doing this video and realised it was going far too fast to see anything, that's what I'm laughing at in the film.

Well. . .

I was down in Dumfries today doing a wee spot of teaching working on a one to one basis with adults with learning disabilities. The studio is on the railway station in town and at about half past ten this morning we were all evacuated because of a suspicious package on the tracks. Certainly added to the excitement of the day I was expecting sirens and flashing lights and bomb disposal experts running in from every direction. As it happened there was none of that and after about twenty minutes they let us back in again. It was probably someone's lunch.

Than this evening I was caught by someone I know browsing the baby care aisle of our supermarket, that's how rumours start around here and it's all Alan's fault!

I was perusing the google images search option today and came across this, how cool is that! An x-ray of the jug. It's from this website, there are a couple of x-rays on there.

PS just incase you were worried Alan had suggested the baby care aisle for good sponges. I found one but it's pretty big so I will have to cut it down I think.

Day two for the sponge

The new sponge is not endearing itself to me. It doesn't so much soak liquid up as just move it around. Hmmm. Did some more throwing this afternoon, a couple of big platters and a big big bowl.If it makes it to that stage it's going to be oh so much fun to decorate. Looking forward to that.

I put handles and spouts and cut the necks of all the puzzle jugs, these are just two of them. I've never done the lettering before I'm not sure if it will stand up to being wetted with the slip. We shall see.

The oval dishes that I had made the parts for yesterday were assembled and the last one got squared instead which I really like, more of them to come I think. It's a great shape, the height and diameter just seem to work really well together.

Paul came over this evening to decorate his tea bowl for Potfest. Not a bad job I don't think, in time he might make me a good assistant.