Tea Time TEAPOTS Take 2

For More you are juts going to have to go see the show!
The North Carolina Pottery Center is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 4.
There is a small admission, a small price to pay to see some great pots!
Just go.
M

Tea Time TEAPOTS

I am just going to post images.
The opening was packed and many, many good teapots.

More tomorrow.
Cheers!
M

The lazy potter

I wanted to share with you my lazy potters way of making multiple handles when one does not want to pull them.
And yes I know that some folks would never, never use an extruded handle.
I make no excuses for our handles which serve well and are attached well on our mugs.
I also make no excuses for being a production potter so here is my lazy potters friend.
Made from parts from a junk yard and plastic pipe.
You can fill with enough clay for lots and lots of mugs, creamers and oil lamps.
Need to know- that is a car piston that pushes the clay through.

  Cheers!
M

Rolling up hill

I had a bisque cooking in the lower room where I also wax pots and get things ready to glaze.
Rather then stand in there with the fumes going I thought I would make some small mugs.
I hit about 15 and then moved over to creamers- only 5 of those before noon.
The bisque finished up in time for me to air out, shut things up and use that heat to keep the room warm.
Then it was on to waxing pots for glaze.
Today's list includes unloading bisque, handling mugs and waxing.
Looks like I have a plan in front of me.

But first, a walk anyone?

Mark has been pulled away from his wheel more then he would like this year, but he did get some vases made for the crown.

I am thinking hard, don't laugh, about which glazes to use in this gas firing.
This will be firing number two for the new kiln and we will be working out more kinks.
We did make a fair number of seconds with the first fire and I hope we can make this load more winners than losers.

After some GREAT weather the wind blowing cold sneaked back in yesterday, but there was plentiful sunshine.
I am trying to figure out how to box some sunshine up and send it to Hollis up in Cape Cod.
It keeps leaking out of the boxes and I can't get in a bottle.
I'll  have to keep working on that.
Make it a good day!
M

a long look or cutting back

At the end of last year Mark and I made a decision to sign up for no shows.
I know, a bit crazy I am sure.
We have thought this over a lot and decide we wanted the freedom from the burden of packing and going away from our store we run here on the farm.
We wanted to just be here as much as we possibly can.
I have had many folks ask where we will be this year.
We will be here.
When we first opened our plan was to make and  sell our work from where we live.
That still stands.

If you want us this is where we will be.
If you want to make sure we are here- we do have families- call or email us.
If you can not get here we do ship and the Etsy shop is always open.
So we plan to take one of those hard looks out how we can continue to work from home and sell pots.
Come on out and see us we are having some great weather.
M

The Void and Chuck

To answer some questions about the last post.
Yes John I have a void in my wheel head.
I have one of those bat-thingy systems.
I bought this thing years ago when I saw it in a magazine.
I do make lots and lots of smallish pots and use to throw them on all round bats.
I would put down a clay "cookie" first but I am a lazy potter and hated the cookie.
We just did not get along.
Sometimes the clay was "too soft" and some times it was "too hard" and if I was lucky it was just right.
And instead of being a bear about it all I bought one of these and it works well for me.
I did not buy their bats.
We had our own made.
I use to use both side of this but why both when one side will do.
It lives on my wheel unless I am working on larger pots.

Some of these bats are sorta swollen since they made it through the fire of 08.
The scraper also made it through the fire.
Funny what tools made the cut.

Now about Chuck.
We had several clay chucks that did not make it through the fire of 08.
They are greatly mourned whenever we reach for them.
BUT- this plastic one did make it through.
I had gone to a workshop and there was someone using plastic plumbing parts for chucks- brilliant!
I went right out and bought some.
This is one I use for most lids.
I do have other sizes.

Oh- and save those glass jar lids they work great inside.

all trimmed up.

Here is another tool that made the fire of 08 although its wrapping did not.
I wrapped some wire around the handle, because, as I said- I am a lazy potter.

I have some folks looking for sugar jars with the lids cut out for a spoon to stay inside.
I usually don't do that because I live in a science project in the middle of no where and like stuff closed.
In fact I dreamed about ants before I made the decision to cut the lids.

Anyway- a friend made me this handy tool 29 years ago for cutting honey pots.
You do remember making 100's of those don't you?

It still works well and no- I don't think I am going back to honey pots.
We love the invention of the honey bear.
Less mess.
Although I may have some honey dippers around here somewhere.

Thanks for all the comments and if you have not noticed and have not been reading go pick up Deborah Wood's Blog- she is back and worth the time and the reads- doing some amazing writing.
DW was the first person to ever comment on my blog back in 08 when I was writing about picking up the pieces after our studio fire.
It was a hell of a time after being struck by Lightning.
But that was 08 and now it is 10 11 and life is about other obstacles.
Cheers for the weekend!
M

Sweetness

I really did start with mugs the other day but after making a set of 6 and a spare I went right on to sugar jars and bottles.
I have made lots and lots and lots and lots of mugs and it must be time to change the shape.
After 4 I was ready to move on and after 7 -I was done.
So I went right into sugar jars and those seemed to take me to a place where the mind did not want to jump around like a jumping bean.
Remember those thing when we were kids?
You could buy them in a package and then get them warm and they jumped around.
I am not sure if this is right but there was some worm in them or bug that when warmed moved- yuck!
I loved the smoking dog too... we had great, not politically correct, toys back then, crazy.
So after the sugar jars I moved over to bottles.

I like to make some bottles for the wood ash glazes that I go back and play with.
So I put in my lines while they are still on the wheel.
Then pick them up on my trusty bats and set aside.

Then the next day I play with them.

After finishing up all the pots from the other day I made more sugar jars just because they were so sweet to make the first go round.


And now here is a little know fact about me.
I use to embroider a lot.
In fact some of these things that I look at now I wonder where I found the time.
I had 2 kids, goats, rabbits and pigs plus I was mother earth so I had a big garden and .....you know the story on that one.
This jacket, size 2 ,was done for my son and then worn by our daughter, passed on to Mark's cousin and then returned to me about two years ago.
I have just picked up my needles again and I thought about this jacket.
Mark had stashed it in his closet and brought it out.
Darn- pretty cute and now I am adding to it for the GRAND daughter.
I am filling in that cloud that I never quite finished and planning to add some to the front.

I might even line the inside when it is done.
Not to shabby and just think this was done oh- about 33 years ago- time flies when you don't know what you are doing.
Cheers!
M

Wandering Wednesday

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,
An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733

Mark vase listed on the Etsy shop

Don't you love the promise of spring?
I find myself full of the thoughts of what comes to us with another year.
I am also bouncing around and falling down like those tumblers.
I can't quite get my footing on what to make next.
I use to have a mental list and a written list of what I needed to make for the next kiln load.
But I feel as if my mental has gone on walk-a-bout...
In fact I have a vision of myself walking away and just walking, walking and walking.
I don't know where I am going in this walk but in my mind if I start I might never stop.

tumbling down

I might need to crawl a little and just make some mugs today.
Working with a shape that has comfort and my hands know what to do and my thoughts can walk.
So mugs...
or sugar jars....
maybe a list would help.

guess who is crawling

So I leave you with some baby love- having just seen and spent some time with the GRAND baby. She is a joy.
Yes, I am totally smitten.

Baby love

Maybe I will have pots to show soon!
M

Tea Time 2

Teapots were delivered last week for the Teapot Show at the NCPC here in Seagrove.
This should be a very exciting show for the Center and Mark and I are pleased to be a part of it.
I am excited to see all the work.
I have read the list on the card and it is a good one.
After it is up we will have to get over to take pictures.
Or better yet- come out and see for your self.

By Mark Heywood

by Mark Heywood

I have a lot to do after a trip to Va. to help with family and stop in Raleigh to see Family.
Back to the studio for me.
Cheers!
M

Friday full of thoughts

There has been a great discussion in the comments section on how much it cost to fire an electric kiln.
Years age mark figured it coast about 8.00 for a bisque- years ago mind you.
We have not done the cost on how much in many years and with the formula that was shared we plan to check out how much it does cost.
We do have the pottery on a separate meter from our house.
That allows us to know what it does cost when we are running full tilt.
I can tell you that the kilns are separate from our work area and this allows us to shut off that area when we are firing.
This save heat when we fire in the winter and A/C in the summer.
It also allows us to continue to work even with a kiln going.
We mostly fire bisque in the electric kilns and have two gas kilns to finish fire in.
But a few years back I wanted to make tiles and we bought the smaller kiln just to do that.
Well there is nothing like a new kiln, its like a new car, to see what you have been missing.
We love the new kiln and spent most of last year saving for a new and bigger one to replace the old kiln.
When it came December after a lot of thought and good advice from the blog community we bought.
I think we will be very happy with our choice.

With the tiles I am using mostly bought glazes and playing with color.
I thought I would only be making tiles- but I am now doing some throwing for the kiln and am trying to find some new glazes for those pots.

The teapots are glazed in a slip type glaze that goes on well and has a nice warm toasty color to it.
But after years of the gas kiln I know I want more depth to what I am using.
So I have been reading and looking through cone 5-6 glazes.
I fire to 2190-soak for 15 and then back cool and shut off.
There is still more to learn.
We did fire cone 6 years ago but the glazes I used then were quick and covered the pots.
I want glazes that will let the carving and stamping show.
So it  is like going back to school and digging through much info while I look for what I want.
Mark is planning to put the new kiln to more use with some heavy reduction.
Seems I am torn between the two worlds....
There is no reason I can' t have both, right?!
Cheers from , I want it all!
M

Happy Together

The new kiln is in place!
It is so pretty and shiny and full of promise.

and some days you just need some color in your life.

Cheers!
M