Evolution of a style -- Pottery

Here are pics of my latest batch of pottery.

I could crop the photo but then you wouldn't get the wrinkled bedsheet/temporary tablecloth.

Here you can see a family of pieces with their related styles. It started with this book on wooden buildings and this picture of curving shingles really caught my eye. So I started carving my pieces based on it. I first wrote about it in Nov 2009 in the post called Carving Clay.

In this grouping below you can see how I started with the curves going horizontally, then vertically. The vertical lines are easier to carve but I like the white piece best. You can really feel the ebb and flow of the lines.

Below are some other pieces. To make sure the carving showed up, I used translucent glazes, like the green, or ones that would "break" on the texture. With the white glaze, I think it's pretty opaque so I wiped off some of the glaze.

A close up of the texture: Not a big fan of the color but love how it shows up the texture.

Ebb and flow of marathon TV watching

Spent the weekend watching Angel the Series from Season Two episode 16 "Epiphany" where Angel sleeps with Darla but doesn't lose his soul to Season Three episode 4 "Carpe Noctem" where Angel's body is taken over by an old man.

That's 11 episodes of about 45 minutes each. All this while carving on my pottery.

I also read the liner notes from the DVD box set. Basically Joss Whedon says that they spun off Angel, but didn't really have an over arching theme like Buffy did. So they made it about anything and everything.

In this marathon watching, I liked Cordelia more and more. The pain from the visions are getting worse, and leaving physical marks on her, yet she's not willing to give them up. They give her a purpose and she wants to help the people in those visions. She's afraid that if she gives up the visions then her friends at Angel Investigations won't want her around. That a long way from the shallow vain girl at Sunnydale High School.

The side trip to Pylea was cute if a little cheesy. Fred's the precursor to River, the smartie who's a little scrambled in the brain pan. Cordelia's made princess, which she enjoys, of course, being restored a bit to her Queen C status of her Sunnydale days. And the Groosalug turns out to be quite the hunk and they fall in love. Still, in the end she gives it up to go back to our dimension.

In various episodes, people's loyalties are tested: Gunn between his old gang and his new gang; Angel fires Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn, goes dark but not all the way to Angelus, then comes back; Harmony comes to LA; Cordelia's tests have been discussed above; and even Lindsey makes a choice and leaves LA and Wolfram and Hart.

However, Lilah's still got a rival, Gavin Park, played by the gorgeous Daniel Dae Kim.

I'm liking this marathon watching and may try to do it with Lost, Battlestar Galactica, or Heroes. I've been reading reviews and recaps of those shows on Television without Pity or just other places. One of the benefits of marathon watching is that there's not a week in between each episode for me to wonder what's going on, how will it be resolved, or to nitpick because the next episode is immediately available and I get the answers soon enough. Plus the amount of info and details in the sheer volume of episodes pushes out the dumber details and what I'm left with is the overall arc of the story and character development.

I read the recap of this week's episode of Heroes on IO9 which was very snarky and read the comments too. The recap was pretty negative and some of the commenters said that it was excessively negative, as if the recapper was looking for things to complain about and not also discuss the good parts.

I think the general trend towards snarkiness makes it harder for shows because there are people out there who do write negative (and funny) reviews that can drown out the better reviews. In marathon viewings, the ups and downs of a show even out.

That's what I did with FlashForward. I went about 3 weeks without watching, then watched 3 episodes in a row on Hulu.

carving clay

Husband's away to Pennsylvania for the Penn State football game, so I'm on my own this weekend. Last night, I stayed up until 3am carving on this bowl. Behind it is the inspiration for the pattern. I will choose a glaze that is translucent, so that the glaze that settles in the grooves will be darker.

I also really like how the clay gets lighter as it dries:

I was thinking of cutting a hole in the bottom to make it a flower pot, but I may keep it intact. Then it can be a bowl for serving food or holding yarn, or be a cache pot to hide the functional plastic flower pots.

Castleberry Hill

Husband and I went for a walk this morning, going from our neighborhood to Castleberry Hill, another up and coming downtown neighborhood, on the other side of Phillips Arena.

It was quite the circuitous route because of the frequent lack of curb cuts. Yo, city planners: curb cuts are necessary at all 4 corners of an intersection, not just some. We would get to an intersection but since there was no curb cut on our side we'd have to backtrack to find another curb cut that would allow us to cross the street. At one point Husband had to roll in the street. Luckily, on Sunday morning, there's not much traffic downtown.

Still, we made it to Castleberry Hill and to No Mas! a well regarded restaurant. They also have a store, which wasn't open today because the owners are at Atlanta Gay Pride. And there's also a pottery shop which also wasn't open.

Just as well, because I've got a few pots in the works.

Before we went for our walk, I left the bowl uncovered on the balcony to dry. Alas, when we got home, it was too dry. I've covered it with a wet towel and wrapped it back up. Hopefully, in a few hours it'll be wet enough to carve without shattering. That would seriously stink if I broke the bowl.

In other pottery news, I used a masonry bit to drill a hole in a bowl (see above) I made years ago, to convert it into a planter. Worked out pretty well, I'd say.

Testing Temptation -- the LYS version

My favorite yarn shop, Knitch, has moved and today's the reopening. I have tomorrow off, since I'm working on Saturday. I'll be selling Chinese batiks and my handmade pottery at the Harvest Market in the City of Riverdale. The proceeds will benefit the organization I work for.

So... Friday, I will come to the office and pick up tables and chairs for the event, and probably do some work. Then I'll go to the pottery studio for open studio time to throw some more pots and carve up the ones that have reached bone dry stage.

After that I may go to Knitch to check out their new digs. Depends on traffic. I also have a frequent customer discount to use by Nov 11 :)

Texture

Last night I brought home a bowl that I threw last week. I'm uncovering it and letting it sit in the sun and wind for a bit, to dry and harden up. When it's leather hard, I can carve designs into it without it squashing all out of shape.

Wine bottle included for scale. Behind them is the 191 building with the 2 turrets. The glass cylinder is the Westin Hotel. The black rectangles are plywood to cover up the missing windows. The windows were smashed when the tornado blew through in March 2008. We weren't living here at the time, but I bet it was pretty cool to see.

When I was at the library this week, this book caught my eye.
Then, as I was flipping through, this close up sparked an idea:
I'm going to carve that bowl to look like this. I can't wait.

Not the Usual

Husband went out of town this weekend for the Wisconsin-Iowa game. So this is how I whooped it up while he was gone.

I made a cake, from scratch, seen above. Chocolate cake with coconut frosting. Ugliest cake, but tasty. As someone who prides herself on making things that are both functional and beautiful, this was not my best. However, it does taste good. And considering this is my first effort in making a cake from scratch and not a boxed mix, I'm pretty happy. Plus this is my first time making frosting ever.

But still, in that picture, I did include things I have made that are functional and beautiful, like the green flowerpot, and my Malabrigo afghan.

This week I also started my pottery class. In the cake picture are three bowls I brought home to dry. The biggest one on the right is 11 inches in diameter and 4.5 inches tall.

I did not work on the Sunrise Circle Jacket, because the fluxuating stitch count was driving me up the wall. I worked on my Noro Furisode Log Cabin blanket instead. I wound up all but one of the skeins into cakes:

On Saturday I worked, speaking on a panel about the challenges of reaching out to refugees for the US Census. I barely had a voice, despite all the honey and tea I've been drinking. Basically, I said that one fear that refugees in particular have about the census, is that in their countries of origin, the census was used by the government to identify and target people of different groups for ethnic cleansing. No wonder then that refugees are reluctant to answer the census.

On the flip side, in some countries, specific ethnic groups were barred from being counted in the census, so now they're really eager to be counted.

After the census thing, I went shopping, something I don't really do anymore because very few things fit right and many stores are eliminating their petite sections. However, I did buy a dark teal blue jacket, black ankle boots, and red suede flats. Even though the jacket is a petite, I still have to have the sleeves shortened.

In another break from the usual, I didn't watch anything by Joss Whedon! Instead, it's been a Neil Gaiman and NCIS weekend. The next Angel DVDs haven't come from the library yet (actually, they have, but I probably won't go get them until tomorrow.) And, okay, I watched the most recent episode of Castle, where they wore the blue gloves. That's the closest I got to Whedonverse this weekend.

Rather, I've been watching the NCIS marathons on USA cable network. It's like Law and Order. Each episode stands alone and they're pretty straight forward who-done-its. I like the characters, especially Abby Scuito the goth forensics tech who also knows sign language. It comes up every once in a while, like when she and boss Gibbs will sign to each other when they don't want others to understand what they're saying, or when lipreading surveillance videos. Plus she has the best wardrobe.

I'm listening to "Stardust" by Gaiman on CD, read by Gaiman himself. He's pretty good as a reader, doing voices too and not sounding cheesy. I'm also reading "Fragile Things" a collection of his short stories, and the movie "Coraline" just came in from Netflix. As a crafter and especially as a knitter and someone who's done clay work, I'm really looking forward to seeing the "making of" feature. I hope there's a making-of feature!

ETA: alas, there is no making-of feature for Coraline. Plus, Brother One gave me two Buffy comics: Predator and Prey, a compilation of issues 20 to 25 of Buffy Season Eight, and Buffy Omnibus One. It was at the office when I came in this morning. On Saturday, I stopped by the office and saw that there was a package in the common area, but I was in a hurry and didn't look closely. If I had, I could have had some new Buffy for the weekend, but I'm happy with the way the weekend turned out, as it is.

Only knitting, now

Yesterday I went to the pottery studio to pick up pieces that were fired. It was kind of sad, because now that I'm moving, I won't be back at the Mable House to do pottery.

Actually, since all our pennies will be going towards the condo, the repairs (it was a foreclosure property, so the former tenants weren't too careful in removing things), a new refrigerator, stove, and washer/dryer. So no more pottery for a long while.

That leaves knitting and reading as my only hobbies for the foreseeable future. This is when having a stash comes in really handy.

First Face

In pottery class, we're learning how to make the human form. This is the first face I've made. Can of V8 for scale.

It's been fired once and the next step will be to glaze it and then fire again.

This guy will just be bald, but the next one, I'll poke holes for yarn hair afterwards. That's one way to use up left over yarn.

Aching Elbows

Last night, I laid in bed, feeling my elbows throbbing. But this was a price I was willing to pay for an afternoon throwing pottery.

It's been a while since I've done that, especially with large chunks of clay. I got really beat up from the wonky clay trying to center it. But in the end it was done. Now I have three pieces of a vase thrown. On Tuesday, when I go back for class, I'll cut them off the batts and join them.

I've done it before for Husband's 18 inch tall amphora so it shouldn't be too hard.

But I'm going to give the knitting a rest for today and tomorrow. I've been putting in some marathon knitting on the weekends which strains my elbows and wrists too.

Reorganized

This is how exciting my weekend has started out. I reorganized my yarn stash. Last night I frogged my big oranged sweater and now had all this yarn to put away.

The stash is in a drawer/armoire thing from IKEA. The top section has one shelf dividing the space and closed with doors, the bottom is 6 drawers.

Before

The entire top half are the wool yarns.

Top shelf: At the very top is the Bag of Malabrigo, resting on a box of brown yarn in the Amazon box, and a ziptop baggie of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Sapphire Heather. I'm using it to make an Opulent Raglan sweater for myself.

Underneath that are 2 wicker baskets lined in cotton, standing on their ends. I like to be able to see all the yarn at once. The basket on the right holds the superwash wools, the basket on the left are non-machine washable blue and green wools. The blue yarn in the plastic bag is left over from the sweater I made Sister here.

Just realized that the top shelf yarns are majority worsted weight, with a few skeins of sock weight thrown in.

The yellow cone is cotton, but I put it here since I have no where else it fits.

Bottom shelf: The open box to the left are the Manos del Uruguay, Berroco Foliage, other varigated yarns, Cascade eco-wool, Lopi. Interestingly, those are the bulky weight yarns.

This is what's in the wicker baskets: pink wool on the left, mohair on the right. The mohair is for the Modern Quilt Wrap by Mags Kandis, from Folk Style. The yarns are mostly Kid Silk Haze and Aura and bought at 40% off at a going out of business sale. The colors are much more muted and earthy and sophisticated than my usual primary color brightness as evidenced by all my other yarn. Hmmm. I should think about that.

You may notice some red around the edges of some of the pictures. That's because the study where the computer and my craft things are has a red carpet. And blue walls. With white trim. See? I'm a bright, primary-color kind of gal.

In the first drawer below are the dyed and dyeable yarns. The orange and yellow are my dyed yarns, and Knit Picks Bare superwash on the left. In the middle is a big back of Rowan Felted Tweed that I got on sale. And some swatches. And some gift yarn, and some leftover red yarn.
I guess it's more than just the dyed and dyeable yarn. It must be my yarn equivalent of the junk/random drawer.

The next drawer are the machine washable yarns: cotton, linen, bamboo (that's the yellow half-finished scarf), synthetics, and my one lone skein on merino silk in the brown bowl half hidden in the back. Felted wool swatches on the far right.

After:

Top shelf: no changes.Bottom shelf: Mohair in a clear container, ziptop bag of superwash wool afghan I started for Brother Two discussed here, and rearranged the wools for more visibility. The clear plastic box holds the mohairs and the top box is 8 skeins of Wool of the Andes in the Ivy green colorway for my mom's shawl.

And again with the stuff in front taken out. Purple Felted Tweed to the left, the mostly pink yarns in the middle, the bulky yarns on the right.

Top drawer: Dyeable yarns. Took out the purple Felted Tweed, put in the yarn from the giant orange sweater. Makes more sense, since one of the oranges I did dye, discussed here.
Drawer of Machine-Washable Yarns -- unchanged. The green, grey, and lavendar linen stitch thing is the middle of a baby blanket I started then abandoned. It was for a co-worker but then I ran out of time. I ended up buying her something off her registry instead.And a new drawer: The Drawer of Red Yarns. All that Lamb's Pride is for an Emerald Sweater for Best Friend, like I made for Sister. I'd like to make one for me too, from that orange-dyed yarn. Eventually.
Well, that's enough excitement for one day. It's a gorgeous day, sunny and near 80 degrees F. I'm going outside to play with clay. I'm taking a class on how to make the human figure and we're starting with heads. I'll post pictures as they come along. So far, everyone's heads are asymetrical, lumpy, and somewhat grotesque. Rather appropriate for the coming Halloween.

Husband wants a bust, complete with laurel leaves, so I better get working on it.

Knitting Queue and other crafts

Went to the Why Knot Knit clearance sale yesterday again. Got more Kid Silk Aura and Kid Silk Haze, in about the same colors. Very slim pickings as this is the last week of their store clearance sale (see previous post about why).

Also picked up a Rowan magazine, for ideas for what to do with all that mohair yarn! When I flipped through it last night, I thought, I know Rowan has their fans, but I'm not one of them. Still, the magazine was 50% off, like everything else left, and there are some patterns I like.

The highlight of my day yesterday was organizing my yarn stash and thinking about the projects I want to make. Here's my project list for 2008:
1. Finish Husband's afghan
2. Finish Brother-in-Law's sweater vest
3. Finish baby blanket for Husband's coworker -- expecting their first, don't know the gender
4. Cardigan for baby for another of Husband's coworkers -- expecting their first daughter. Will make Helena from the new Knitty.
5. Sweater vest for my father -- probably the tennis sweater from Son of Stitch 'n' Bitch
6. Shawl for my mother -- probably from Victorian Lace Today, or the one from Big Girl Knits
7. Cardigan for Sister - yarn already bought, turquoise Lamb's Pride Bulky
8. Cardigan for myself -- using all that Kid Silk Aura and Kid Silk Haze I just bought.

Next July 4 will be my parents' 40th anniversary, so I'm trying to think about what to make for them. I thought it would be great to knit a wedding ring shawl for my mom, but then I came to my senses. I've never knit anything quite so ambitious before, and I'd still have to make something for my dad. Perhaps I'll make something out of pottery.

For their 30th or maybe 35th anniversary I designed a crossstitch piece for them. Maybe I'll design a cross stitch, embroidery, or needlepoint piece. At least I have time to mull it over.

As for pottery, I'm taking a new class, about surface embellishment. In the first class, she gave us wooden spoons with shapes carved in the handle. We have to make a lidded vessel, incorporating the spoon and the shapes somehow. My spoon had a crescent moon, so my lidded jar has to have the crescent moon motif.

I like how the teacher has really pushed us to think about what we're making. Made me realize that I've fallen into a rut. Usually I make bowls with the same surface designs.

So in the spirit of branching out, I will make a baby cardigan (see #4 above), instead of yet another baby blanket. Should be fun. And since I just organized my stash, it should be easy to find 500 yards of machine washable yarn.

But first, must finish a project!

Food as art

Danger! Danger! New craft I want to try: carving fruit and vegetables.

Great article and pictures here at the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/dining/14carve.html?em&ex=1210910400&en=641542df67da610b&ei=5087%0A

It's an old, old tradition in Asia. I remember learning to cut up and carve an apple into a bird, though I don't remember if I learned in the US or in Taiwan.

While I will most probably not start this craft, I can translate it into my pottery. I've been making more rounded jar/pots, which are very much like pumpkins or watermelons. I love carving pottery when it's at the leather-hard stage.

When pottery is first thrown on the wheel, it's very wet and malleable. Then it dries to a leather-hard stage where you can pick it up, cut it up, and carve, like leather. It's not so soft and limp, but it can still bend without breaking. At the bone-dry stage, it's, well, bone-dry, and very fragile. Pick it up wrong and it'll break, even though it looks strong, it's not. Then it's ready for the first firing in the kiln. After the first firing is the glazing, and another firing.

But that leather-hard stage is magic. I've taken my pieces home at that stage and carved curliques, birds, flowers, and other bas-relief type things into the pottery. It's my second most favorite stage of pottery making, the first being the actual throwing on the wheel.

The pictures from this article is definitely giving me ideas....

Got interviewed for local news station

Yesterday, I was video interviewed by Brenda Wood, for her "Good People" segment on the local news on Monday nights. I think it went pretty well and I think it was pretty clear that I'm a social justice activist. I'm a little apprehensive about how it will be edited and shown.

There was one point where she asked me what I get out of the work and I was surprised at how emotional I got at that question! I said I get a lot out of working with the refugee and immigrant women. It's great to see how our work with them allows them to move forward with their lives, empowers them to become community leaders, to open their own businesses, etc.

Later, she came back and asked me why I got so emotional. I mentioned growing up in the US being the only Asian in the neighborhood and not being accepted by Americans and then living in Taiwan and not being accepted as Chinese. The unfairness of being rejected and discriminated against for aspects of my identity that I can't change is what fuels my activities with regard to social justice.

But I don't think about that very much. I mentioned that it's important to acknowledge the past because it informs who you are. But if you focus too much on the past, you can't move forward. And certainly the rest of the world is moving forward, with or without you.

She asked if I would volunteer with my organization even if I wasn't paid. First I asked if it was still as executive director. When she said not, then I said yes (paying bills, doing payroll, having to deal with staffing issues, and all the administrative stuff is not what I want to volunteer for, as important as it is) and described my tree of life as a crape myrtle tree, with the multiple trunks representing the different pillars of my life -- social activism, art, and family. The trunks come from the same roots, the branches of each trunk are intertwined, and all work together to sustain and grow the tree. (Deep, isn't it? Sometimes I got it in me.) So I would still volunteer and be active because it's something I believe in.

Then she asked me about my art. I mentioned my knitting and pottery and she just loved the metaphor of my molding the clay like my work molds the women my organization works with. I said I can certainly take credit for bending the clay to my will, but my influence over other people is definitely not as extensive! I prefer the metaphor of the quilt, where you take pieces of different fabrics and sew them together to create a new fabric that is beautiful and useful.

She asked about my pottery and I mentioned how you have to really concentrate on centering the clay, and you can't be thinking other other things because then the clay will fly off the wheel or fall in on itself. It's like meditation, it clears the mind, but unlike meditation, you have an object at the end that you can share with other people. I guess you could share the serenity you get from meditation, but I still prefer giving pottery. She asked if I sell the pottery or give it away. I most definitely just give it away and I joked how my family is pretty tired of getting pottery from me.

But that may actually just be my husband. Most other people are pretty impressed when they find out that I made it myself. I think in such a consumerist society, we have become removed from the actual creation of things and when we are exposed to it again, we are impressed. I didn't go off on that consumerist jag in the interview.

She loved the molding clay metaphor anyway and said they might come to my pottery class to film me actually throwing a pot. In the end that didn't happen.

So how did she find me to want to interview me? A few weeks ago, I was honored by a girl-serving organization for my work with women and girls, and Brenda Wood was the MC for the event. She read my introduction (which I did not write), which talked about my work on women's issues, refugee issues, nationally and locally, etc. It was a lot just in the last 4 years, since I've been executive director of this organization and I felt pretty tired after hearing all that. I don't try to do all those things all at once and so I guess I hadn't thought about it cumulatively.

Plus, I'm usually looking forward, not backward. I mean I do try to reflect on past experiences, but mostly in order to apply lessons learned to future activities. Moving on!

Sleepless night = A Plan

So work has been very stressful lately for a number of reasons. They involve staff issues, community partner issues, auditors, and funders. That would be pretty much everyone, does it not?

However -- I have a plan! After a sleepless night where issues and possible solutions ran around my head, I finally got up at 5am to write down my to-do list of solutions. Ah, feel so much better now.

I will have to 'fess up to Major Funder about my mistake, no way to avoid it, but I feel like it's no longer the end of the world because I have a solution that will get us back on track and still allow us to reach our client goals. Because client outcomes is really what matters, right? Right? Right.

Plus, I have come up with a way to get on track with Complaining Employee. It's clear that what she thinks of as leadership and what I think of as leadership are different. As part of our leadership program, we have an exercise that discusses the 8 kinds of leadership. I will ask her to pick the one that fits her definition of leadership and what kind of leadership she thinks I am using and see if we can't come to some kind of understanding.

As part of our board's strategic planning, they decided to really ramp up our leadership program, which Complaining Employee is responsible for, using my definition of leadership. This is sending her the signal that hey, this is the direction this whole organization (not just me) is going and she better get with the program or this unhappy situation will just continue.

The only flaw with my solution? It relies heavily on a Knowledgable Community Partner who is pulling out of the program because she has a new job that takes her out of town often, and is also scheduled for surgery.

However -- I have options for that too! Knowledgable Community Partner is not the only one in our city of 5 million people who have this knowledge. And I have contacts to at least 5 other sources of such knowledge. So, we're moving ahead, we still have ways of reaching those client outcomes.

As I lay in bed, listening to my heart pounding in my ears, and feeling the throbbing in my wrists from the knitting (danger, danger -- also possibly psychosomatic like the nausea and headache?), I thought about my pottery. Of the pieces that I have yet to carve with surface decoration. Of my favorite new glaze, dark transparent green, that really highlights carved decorations. Of the bonsai pot I'm making of Husband. Of the method I will use to remoisten a bone dry vase in order to patch the hole I poked in the bottom (see -- things are fixable!). Of the peace I feel when concentrating on centering and pulling clay on the wheel. And I felt myself relax.

As much as I'd like to dodge responsibility for this mess, I thought about Janet Reno saying the buck stops with her, as she took responsibility for the Waco disaster. My situation is nowhere near as bad as Waco. No one died, the worst thing will be having to return some money. Actually the absolute worst thing will be having the funding pulled, but I have a solution! That has to count for something!

Fortunately, I know I have my board's support. Plus on Friday, I was honored at another organization's luncheon for all that I've done for women's rights. No one said this would be easy, all the time, and this is just one of those times.

And I have solutions! Moving on!

Kaffe Fassett's in town

Tomorrow night I'm going to hear Kaffe Fassett do a lecture on using color. It's sponsored by Intown Quilters. They recently moved but I haven't been to their new location. Probably just as well, as I already have a quilt fabric stash that does not need to grow.

All of Fassett's stuff uses a ton of color, many that I never would think of using together. One of his mottos is "If you're not sure what color to use, add 20 more!" or something like that. I have several of his quilting and knitting books (Kaffe Fassett's Kaleidoscope of Quilt's, Glorious Patchwork, Family Album, and Kaffe Fassett's Pattern Library) and will take them for him to sign. Conveniently, the lecture will be held at an office park right next to where I work.

On Wednesday night, he and Brandon Mably will be doing a book signing at my favorite yarn shop Knitch. But that's pottery night and I don't want to miss it again. Last time I missed pottery night was to see the Yarn Harlot speak.

There's only three pottery sessions left in this quarter and I have so many pieces to trim, bisque, and glaze. I still have pieces from the spring quarter that have yet to be glazed. This has been a great pottery class. I'm making really large (for me) pieces, using 8 and 10 lbs of clay, and now I've learned how to make teapots. Very fun. Next quarter I'm signing up for Mariella's class again.

Still tired

I took yesterday off from work and just slept in until 10:30. Such bliss.

The afternoon was spent throwing pottery. I would start with 8 or 10 pounds of clay, but would lose at least a pound during the centering process. The clay comes in rectangular blocks and I cut smaller blocks from it. Well, it takes a lot of upper body strength to smack a corner-y piece into a relatively rounded piece. Once on the wheel, it took even more strength to squeeze it into a centered cone, scraping off a pound or so of clay in the process. Then I could begin to open it up, pull it up, and shape it into a bowl or jar.

During my four hours there, I've made a couple of tall jars with lids, a medium bowl, and another big bowl, but I'm thinking I'll have to cut about an inch off the top (there goes another half pound). It's thin and weak with airbubbles. When I trim the bottom, I'll have to turn it upside down while leather hard and let it rest on that thin rim. Not a prospect I want to consider. I left the bowl on the batt so next time I go, I can pop it back on the wheelhead and it'll still be centered.

I've got about 5 pounds of clay scrapings that I'll harden up and then wedge (knead) up. Then I can throw it again.

Today, I'm feeling it in my pectorals, biceps, deltoids, and elbow joints. But I'm happy. Any day throwing pottery is a good day.

What's so funny about peace, yarn and pottery

My apologies to Nick Lowe.

I've finished the baby blanket for a friend and am still feeling the crochet vibe. So I've swatched these, using the "Big Round" pattern from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks:

The cluster stitches in the middle make me think of cupped flower petals.

One of the things in my Knitpicks order is a yarn guide that you wear on your finger. It's supposed to help stranded color knitters keep the different yarns separate. However, I'm going to use it to keep the yarn off my skin. When I crochet for a long time, the yarn sliding across the top of my tensioning finger gets to be quite uncomfortable and eventually a little groove gets indented into the top of the finger.

In other news, I've made progress on Husband's afghan, finished one more blue stripe and have wound the yarn for the next blue stripe. Then I will sew the stripes together, pick up stitches on the left and right and knit the side stripes.

In the past, the sewing together was not fun for me, but now I rather like it.

And I've cut off ridge row at the bottom of the Honorine sweater and have begun knitting down. It's just stockingnette in the round, which some people hate, but I love because it's just mindless knitting. I wonder if I could get away with knitting at the board meeting this weekend.... Maybe I'll work on it during lunch and they'll see that I can talk while eating and knitting, and then it won't be so bad during the rest of the day. I did knit during a Georgia Progressive Summit meeting while one of my board members was there...

Anyway, next Wed, Sept 19, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, will be in town to speak. Honorine will the be perfect project to take along.

Wednesdays are my pottery class. I have been loving it. We are learning to make very large wheelthrown objects. Usually my pieces are about 8 inches tall, and use 5 pounds of clay. In the first class, I threw a jar at least a foot tall, using 8 pounds of clay, and yesterday I threw a huge bowl (that's me, the bowl lady) using 10 pounds. And all 10 pounds put up a fight, but I got it done. The bowl's at least a foot tall and 15 inches wide. I wanted to make my mother-in-law a huge salad serving bowl and I think I got it.

I really like Mariella, the instructor. She's got a lot of energy and not very rigid. I've had instructors who say there's only one way to do this or that, but Mariella's not that way. She thinks imperfections show that these pieces were made by an individual artisan, and not stamped out by some machine. I like that attitude.

I'll miss the next class because of the Yarn Harlot, but I'll go to Mariella's Monday afternoon class instead. Because this weekend will the weekend of work so I'm taking Monday off. I'm going to sleep in, have a cup of coffee, and then go do pottery for as long as they'll let me. I have some pieces from the spring quarter that have yet to be glazed. And I'll have to buy another bag of clay, since I've used up the entire 25 pound bag in just 2 sessions.

It will be bliss. There is nothing better than throwing pottery. You have to focus just on centering the clay on the wheel, and that centers you. Then in pulling up the clay and working on it, you have to pay attention to what the clay tells you. All your motions have to be smooth, deliberate, and slow. You have to feel the clay and make sure you don't push it too far that it weakens and collapses. One instructor said "the enemy of good is better."

In the end, if you do it right, which isn't hard, you get a piece that's beautiful and useful, and peace in your day.

What price art?

Went to the art fair in Marietta Square today. It didn't seem that good this year. I saw a lot of artists from the other art fairs this year, including the Folk Art festival from last weekend. Didn't buy anything.

There was a lot of pottery, but I didn't buy anything, since I'll be starting pottery classes next week. I've been making pottery for probably 5 years now, but really, all I ever make are bowls. At the art fair, I was mostly drawn to the bowls, but I did see some raku boxes that were very cool. I had planned on going back to that booth but forgot. Probably just as well.

There was a weaver, which was new. And 2 knitting vendors. One sold scarves, ponchos, and shawls from ladder yarn. She was asking $90 for a scarf. She said the yarn was from Italy and Germany. Okay. I've gone to Michael's Arts and Crafts and gotten one ball of nylon ladder yarn for about $7 and made the same kind of scarf.

Of course, I'm not counting my time, which is actually the biggest cost. I don't know how many hours I spent actually knitting, because for me, the actually process of knitting, of making something with my two hands, is the biggest pleasure for me. However, let's use the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts as an example.

The book estimate that the scarf takes more than 8 hours to make, so let's say it takes 10 hours. So 10 hours of knitting x $5.15 an hour minimum wage = $51.50. Then add in the $7 for the yarn, the $5 for the needles, and we're up to $63.50. The vendor has to add in some more cost for ice packs and aspirin from knitting too much. So let's bring it up to $70. There's also the cost of renting the tent, the display booth equipment, a bit of the cost have to be built into the price of each piece, and then in the end, the vendor has to mark it up to actually make a profit.

Hence the $90 scarf. Which I won't buy. But others will, because they either can't knit or rather not knit that and use their knitting time on something else. Certainly I have bought pottery, even bowls, because I know that even though I could make it, I probably won't.

I have learned that lesson. Just look at my knitting queue, which I add to all the time. I just won't have time to make all the things I want to. So either it doesn't get made at all, or I go ahead and buy it, actually get to enjoy it, and support an independent artist.

The other knitting vendor sold felted purses for $100+. They were nicely lined with inner pockets, a key holder thingy, nice straps, etc. But again, I thought "I can make that! And I have made felted purses." And I'm thinking of making another, bumping it to the head of the knitting queue. It'll be easy portable knitting.

After Honorine gets done. More than half way there. Progress pictures later, when the sun it out.

Orange and Ivory

This is what I was working on during my vacation to the cottage a few weeks ago, with book for scale. And look, the colors match! Quite unintentionally, might I add. The hook is orange too.

The yarns are one skein of KnitPicks Bare Superwash worsted wool and one skein of varigated orange superwash sock yarn from Fearless Fibers. The orange is held double, the ivory single, using a size H crochet hook. The pattern is modified from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton.

You can see from the ball of orange how much I have left. I alternate between making an orange circle in an ivory square with making an ivory circle in an orange square and will stop when I run out of the orange.

Here's a close up of the squares, where you can kind of see the varigation.

I'll sew up the squares with a skein of Bare in fingering weight that I have already Kool-aid dyed in varigated yellow.

For the border, I'll Kool-aid dye a skein of worsted weight Bare in orange and yellow to try to match the yarn from Fearless Fiber. I have a skein of worsted weight Bare that I've already dyed yellow, so I'll overdye it in orange. I've never tried it, so this should be interesting.

All this orange is quite a departure for me. For the longest time I really did not like the color. But as I began to get into knitting again, I became exposed to variegated yarn. Then I found Koigu and then indie dyers and yarns with colors I never thought about putting together. My horizons were really broadened and now I find myself really liking this orange.

So here's another picture, but in a different medium:

The clay body is raku, which fires white. While leather hard, I used a stencil to carve the blossoms in and painted with an orange underglaze. After the bisque firing, I put a clear glaze over it and high fired it to cone 6. It's about 6 inches tall and I think I started with about a pound of clay.

Next week I'm signing up for pottery class again. There's a new instructor who will be teaching us how to make big pieces on the wheel with lots of clay. So instead of coming home with 20 small bowls, I'll be coming home with just a few really big bowls.

What can I say? I have a thing for bowls.