Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,  we are taking both weekends off and of course Christmas Eve, which is my busiest baking day of the year.  It has been a busy few weeks and I am gradually getting into the swing of things, but we have a long way to go.

We have a lot more activities in the New Year, we have a Kids and Clay club starting to get local children interested in Pottery.  There are still lots of Pottery Lessons Available, and if you come and visit us we can teach you to make an animal or throw your own personal breakfast bowl and mug.

Our big mugs have been popular so another batch of those have been thrown as well as a smaller mug that is made with the same style in mind.

 Our new shop sign over one of our two arches and on the pictures below you can see how the shop now looks inside.  With the cold weather things don't dry very fast in the shop and rarely become bone dry so they tend to dry out on my kitchen table at home for a day before being fired.  The walls are still quite bare but we promised some space to a young photographer who is interested in selling some of his photographs, large ones of course.  We also have some clocks etc that we are going to put up on the wall, I'm just doing a few more glaze tests.

Pottery Lessons - the results

These are the results of three individuals I gave some tuition to, on the left is Jordan who has been on the wheel with us before back when we were students but he is a very nervous thrower and I think he did very well even though he was scared of the clay.

In the Middle is Catherine and on the right is Ben,they are my younger brother and sister but they had never been on the pottery wheel before.

I think all three did really well, and if you are in the North West of England and want a new hobby or a just to make a bowl and a mug, we can teach you on any one of our three wheels, we can do it individually or a family group.

Busy Busy Busy

The Pottery is keeping me so busy these days, things are slow there so I keep throwing in the window and try and get some interest, and people seem to like it from what they say as they pass but getting them through the doors is another matter, we do have visitors that come in but I need a way of getting more people through our doors rather than just looking in.

Earlier in the week we had our plastic splash backs fitted around the pottery, I don't have pictures yet but I will do soon.

Today has been a busy day, we went to our little boys preschool for their nativity play.  As he is one of the younger ones, ie under 3 he was dressed as Santa, he seems a lot bigger than the other under twos.  After that we headed to the shop and I threw 8 sake cups as a Friend commissioned me to make some, I threw some pouring bottles to go with them yesterday and the ones that were too big had handles attached and are now jugs.

This Afternoon our sign came from Broadway Publishing in Blackpool, it looks really good, but the fitting will have to wait until next week.  Then tonight was my Baby Brother's 21st Birthday Party, I can't believe he has gotten so old, I still think of him being about 8 or 9.  I went up to the Thornton Cleveley's Football Club, I took the little one and I don't drink anyways.  Once the little one got tired we came home and put him to bed and have been trying out my new camera and photo tent. It still needs a little tweaking and probably another light.

This Sunday we are at the Thornton Cleveley's YMCA craft Fair from 10-4 where we will be selling things and advertising our services including Children's Parties.  I have thrown a series of small mugs, bud vases and ice cream bowls that all weighed 250g when they were wet, so then the can be decorated whilst children are taking turns on the wheels.

These are some coggles that I made, though Simon Leach did a video of them, the Technician at UCLAN had some in his tool box and I always wondered what they were for.  I realise now I should have asked more questions when I was there.  They are for applying  repeating textures to pottery, I tested them before they were bisque fired.

Incense Stick Holder, I have some glazed in a speckled blue as well as this white and I am going to make some with crushed glass instead of the glaze, which will go in the next firing.

Oyster Plate, I threw this after watching a video on Youtube, I am really interested in using textures again in my work.  It is about the size of a side plate rather than a full sized plate.

Spoon Rest, the speckled blue is just the white with a small amount of cobalt added

I have made even more tea light holders as I was running out and then as soon as I threw these and bisque fired them I found another 10 of the reduction fired ones

Double "Twin Cherry" bowl, Twin Cherry was my wife's idea of what to call them, based on work that Simon Leach makes on YouTube the are just glazed on the inside and I have 5 of them, all in the white glaze.

Here is the Marsh Mill "Windmill" I was making, it has only been bisqued and is awaiting some more details before I put a thin layer of transparent on it.

Yarn Bowl, I have seen a few people making these recently and we have a wool shop a few doors away so I thought I would made some, but I didn't like the others so they are happily slaking down in a bucket at the shop.