So today I'm thinking. . .

Well the sun is still shining and I'm still a long way from home. It's hard being away for so long, and twice in close succession isn't at all good. I am enjoying spending time with Paul Young and of course seeing my friends last weekend and hopefully this weekend too is great. Yesterday I was feeling on top of the world, shattered but happy, today not so. I've been thinking too much, I think that's the problem, time off from doing doing doing to be thinking thinking thinking. I am finding this year pretty tough, I expected it to not be easy what with all the doom and gloom that is being plastered about all over the place by the doom and gloom merchants of this world. Today I have been wondering about all the different events and shows and exhibitions that I apply for and the success rate or not as the case may be. I think I need an overhaul of the way I go about applying for things and thinking about applications and maybe even the sort of things that I apply for. I'm thinking a little bit about the show this weekend, where I am exhibiting but just on a small portion of a shared stand with the Northern Potters Association. For me it is important as I think it is a great event to be seen at even in that small portion but how do I get into a place in my work where I can be good enough to be able to accepted for a whole stand? When will I feel like a real potter? Six years and a half or there abouts I've been self employed now and I feel like I should know just where I am aiming for and what I want to do but I'm a bit confused and maybe I'm trying to do too many things actually. Who knows?

Anyway tomorrow sees me driving up to Nottinghamshire to Rufford Country Park to Earth and Fire. Hopefully I'll see some of you there. I'll be the one looking confused and befuddled in a corner probably but you never know, tomorrow is another day and the way my head space swings about at the moment anything could happen.

To make or break a potter. . .

Well to break a potter, or pair of potters to be more precise you can shut the entire second floor of the Hanley Museum in Stoke on Trent which is where all the blooming pots are so that when they make a trip to Stoke which they only do once in a blue moon they can only see a glimpse of the Toft chargers through two sets of glass doors and across about 50 yards of floor.
To make them though you can open a kiln furniture graveyard where the red haired one of the same pair of potters can buy loads of kiln shelves and props for her new kiln for a pittance.

Well I didn't know I could do that.

Who'd have thought it? Today we started what we've been trying to start for months and months and months. Jason came over to give me a hand, we got out the fireclay and the bricks and started laying them. I have been learning how to spread mortar and lay bricks, didn't know I could do that. This whole project is one big learning curve.

So two layers f heavy bricks for the base and we started building the tunnels for the flames.

Here I am, just to prove it, dark picture though. I am now aching like something that is incredibly achy, and have enjoyed a very hot and very deep bath. Unfortunately I have to go away tomorrow, it would have been good to carry on now that it's started. Never mind, hopefully July will see some more building done.

Lots of lovely pots out of the kiln. I'm really pleased with them. This plate I think has a lot of potential, I'll be playing with that idea some more once I get home again. I managed to start packing up for the weekend and the coming ten days that I will be away. Lots of things to take for lots of different things.

Fat jug with a band of slip trailed oak leaves.

Crazy blooming daisies.

Lovely big fat jug full of sgraffito crazy daisies. It's got a nice handle but I forgot to photograph that bit, it was a long day and I was getting very tired when I was unpacking the kiln. So off to Taena pottery in Gloucestershire tomorrow, I may be able to blog during the week but I can't guarantee it. Looking forward to seeing my good potting friends and hopefully making some new friends too.

So they were paying attention after all.

I received this card today from Castledykes Primary School where some of the children were from who visited the workshop at Spring Fling. It's really lovely, they have got my Woodley's kick wheel in there, my whirler, my buckets of slip, the shelves full of pots and look even the slip trailers, both my inner tube ones and the commercial one. Not sure what the big purple pot on top of the shelf is but I'm chuffed to bits with it. It's going to be pinned up on the wall.

I finally got around to slipping this jug today, my apologies to the customers, it's taken me longer than I had intended. I just don't seem to have had enough time recently to sit don and concentrate on it. The circle on the front was really hard to draw and it took me a bit of time to work up to getting the trailer near it.

I'm pleased with it though. Looking forward to seeing it fired. The rain has been torrential all day today, quite grim, especially after the fabulous few weeks we've had recently. It seems to have cleared up now though and I've got my fingers crossed for a good day tomorrow. I managed to deal with my new fringe by shoring it up with those pins your grandma used to use to keep her hairnet in place - just in case you were wondering.

By the way obviously not the pins that were specifically owned by all your grandma's, just pins of the sort that your grandma would use.

New things

New pictures of my Sgraffto Oak Leaf cheese domes, thank you Amanda. If you happen to be a Country Living subscriber you can currently get your hands on these with a 15% discount you lucky people!

New flowers on some plants I bought from Tig a while ago which I was a little afraid I may have killed, well it appears I haven't - phew!

New hair cut, not that you can probably see from the picture. I have a sort of floppy fringe, not had a fringe for about 15 years, I think it may annoy me ridiculously in about ummm 15 minutes. All very well if you have the sort of job where you need to flick your hair at your boss but not sure how practical for a potter. Lovely hairdresser though, she went to school with Jason's daughter I discovered and it's nice to have smart hair once in a while, even if it only lasts till I go to bed.

Monday monday

Sgraffitoed these little cups and saucers today for an order. I'm really into this crazy daisy at the moment, I think this might be the summer of crazy daisies.

This afternoon I made up some extra sandy clay and threw a couple of big chargers and then some larger than my normal plates to take down to Gloucestershire this weekend for the workshop at Taena Pottery.

Ouch itch scratch

Well here I back from Cub camp, we were blessed with some glorious weather which makes everything so much easier. The mighty midges were out in force for what I think must be their first proper feed this summer and they were on fine form as my ears , ankles and wrists will confirm. Only one boy got ambulanced away from the site but he is now at home and gutted that he miss the rest of the camp but if he will fall 12 foot out of a tree what does he expect?

So friday saw me in a mad decorating frenzy in order to get things finished and dried over the weekend to get a kiln on about three hours ago, just after I got home and just before I fell asleep for a couple of hours. I think I have gotten too much sun to my head this weekend. It''s funny there were Scouts there this weekend who on the last camp I was at with them were sulky stroppy teenagers and wouldn't help with any thing and now twelve months later they're no longer little boys and are suddenly offering to carry all the heavy gear and generally being a fantastic help. It's good to see how they change and become adults.

I've been making plates for some of the local schools as prizes for a programme of carbon awareness run by the Crichton Carbon Centre.

I had a couple of jugs to slip, this one is a little weird, I put a quick bit of sgraffito on there this afternoon too but it had gotten too dry to do as much as I would have like to it. Maybe next time.

Different placing of decoartion within my pots is something I have been contemplating but never quite getting around to until this plate. No border either! Had to try really hard to not do that.
This week is going to be mainly preparing for the slipware workshop at Taena Pottery next weekend, and doing a bit of kiln building hopefully all being well and glazing the kiln load of bisque pots which should be out Tuesday in time to be fired again before I leave for another extended trip.

Marvelous Really

This is Doug's friendly wee oak tree at the side of his workshop. I had many a nice chat with this tree last week and told it all about it's relatives north of the border. It's a friendly little mite says it might visit one day once it's big enough to go out on it's own.

The rest of my stand at Bovey Tracey.

This tree is on my way to work, I was only thinking just before I went away that it seemed to be being very slow in sprouting this year's leaves and I came back to find it like this!

We had a pretty monster hail storm this morning.

Have to go and pack up my things again now as I am off away on Cub Camp tomorrow. The only weekend I have off in June and I'm spending it on a camp site with 100 children! Crikey that sounds even worse when I put it like that. The theme is Christmas of course so we will be having a turkey dinner hopefully in a style that Ang would be used to ie on the beach in the sunshine. Our Scout campsite is down the way near Gatehouse of Fleet and is right on the beach, it's a really great place and I've spent many many happy hours down there. Keep your fingers crossed for sunshine with a light breeze, just enough to keep away the dreaded Scottish midge.

More from Devon

Chasing the little bit of shade.

Good riddance to weeds in one easy move.

Doug's pots, some from the latest kiln load, jugs jugs and more jugs, fabulous shapes aren't they, he does make some blooming fabulous jugs. I would happily give them all a home.

There were four teapots in the kiln that I fired before I went to Devon, two for orders and some just for fun. I've been testing the pouring abilities this afternoon and they seem not at all bad. Practice practice.

I started decorating this jug before Spring Fling and then it's been wrapped up for weeks now. I thought it was time that I made a move with it and made it start to make more sense. It is one of three harvest jugs for an order. I have enjoyed working on it this afternoon and there's still more to do but I'm looking forward to making the series of them.

The front is an old sailing ship, very reminiscent of the harvest jugs of old.

On the back is text from an old pot.

I spent the morning throwing, it feels like months since I've been able to do any of that. I have a lot of orders to be made from Spring Fling and a couple of shop orders to be getting on with. I'm hoping to get a lot of them made and decorated before I go away again next week so that they can be happily drying for when I get back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hk3rDipRsQ

I can't work out how to put this video thing here but I found it last night whilst listening to something on the radio. It's odd, very very odd, a little sinister but amusing too.

Ahhh home sweet home again.

A big big thank you to Doug and Hilary and the boys for their hospitality over the last ten days or so and to Nic and Sabine and Elsa who I stayed with too. I have had a wonderful time in very sunny Devon and I will come back soon.
The plates above were in Doug's kiln last week, yes the one we fired on the hottest day imaginable. Remind me not to do that again, it does not make for an easy pleasant day.

It was a long time to be away from home. I haven't been away that long since Paul and me moved in together. It got a bit tough towards the end and oh what is it I'm doing a week on friday? Ah yes going away for ten days again! Damn! I got home to see that my kiln shed elf had been hard at work while I was away and has put up the roof on my kiln shed, I am going to give Jason a ring this afternoon and arrange a time for him to come over for the next kiln building stage.

The place has gone crazy since I left, I could hardly get in through the workshop door as my trees have grown about a foot bigger since I left and the green thing that comes up through a tiny crack in the concrete on the right hand side of the door has begun it's annual attempt to take over my workshop.

There was a little parcel waiting for me when I got back last night which was full of these shards. I had forgotten all about them, the lady I made the press moulded feathered pie dish for at Christmas sent them, they are what her husband finds in their garden. I was really excited to see them, they are just lovely, how lucky am I?

A quick shot of some of my stand from the show, I was quite pleased with how it looked which makes a change as usually I am not happy with it. The tree plate set got a lot of attention, as did my fat bird puzzle jug. I met some lovely people and some rather odd ones too, but had a great time.

Well well well, hot hot hot

They tell me it's warmer down south and by 'eck they're not wrong! Fired Doug's kiln today, blooming 'eck twas rather warm for doing that sort of work. No breeze what so ever! No pictures I'm afraid but you can have them when I get home.