Just a quick reminder that I will be at the Howard County Holiday Mart this Saturday December 3rd. Just about everything from all 3 Thanksgiving kilns will be with me at that sale.

How awesome are the clay ornaments!!! I realized I likely wouldn't have time to over glaze so I went hunting and found that in my box o NFS (not food safe) glazes I had Palladium. I don't know the last time I used it, but it looks awesome and shiny. There are a couple more smaller ones further down in the kiln. The next challenge is going to be - how much do I charge for these? Despite the fact that the bigger ones do use more clay, they are actually all pretty difficult and time consuming to glaze. If I had gone for a more minimalist approach and wiped back (like Michael did in his video), it would have been easier, but I really wanted deep glaze. It was definitely worth it though.

This is the first of 3 Thanksgiving kilns results. Even though the last one is firing post Thanksgiving, since I spent my Thanksgiving weekend glazing these are all Thanksgiving kilns. Here is to hoping that the next two are as good as this one.
Love my leafy gnome. He took a long time to do both in the making and the glazing, but I think it was worth it. The question is do I keep him for me?
I made a ton of ornaments with my new De La Designs stamp and cutters. I love the gingerbread people, house, and reindeer so very much. I have more coming in the next couple of kilns.
Also loving the snowman and cookies for santa plates.
The one exception to all the awesome is that my pointettia bowl cracked. It's still pretty, but going to be extra fragile with that crack. I think I made the clay too thin and the cut too deep as a v. It was fine in the bisque, but the stress must have been too much.

Mayco UG black wiped black Hat: Coyote Parakeet x2 Body: Opulence Emerald x3 Leaves: Mayco Hot Tamale, Sunkissed, Jack o Lantern, Java Bean Nose: Mayco Cutie Pie Coral x3	Opulence Emerald x3
KY Mudworks Hydra x2, Triton x2 Mayco Light Flux on rim	Laguna 60 Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco Norse Blue x3 Light Flux on Rim Mayco Hot Tamale x3
Hat: Mayco Northern Woods x3 Body: Amaco Snapdragon x3 Nose: Mayco Cutie Pie Coral x3	Hat: Amaco Snapdragon x3 Body: Mayco Northern Woods x3 Nose: Mayco Cutie Pie Coral x3
Hat: Laguna Power Turquoise x3 Eyes: Mayco Tuxedo x3 Nose: Mayco Orange a Peel x3	Star: Mayco Sunkissed x3 Leaves: Mayco Underglaze Leaf Green 2167 clear Note: I didn't take into account the clear pooling on the tops of leaves, but it actually made for a cool effect. This is the last thing I had to glaze from the Michael Harbridge workshop and is the same standard clay
Clayscapes Cream swipe, Coastal Blue	Mayco Underglaze Fire Engine Red, Snapdragon x2 Mayco Underglaze Leaf Green, 2167 clear Tops Amaco Ancient Copper x3
Clayscapes Cream swipe, Garden Green	These two are inverses of each other Amaco Snapdragon x3 Mayco Northern Woods x3 Noses: Mayco Cutie Pie Coral x3
Hat and mouth: Mayco designer liner red, white Eyes: Laguna Power Turquoise Eyebrows, moustache:Mayco designer line white Beard: Mayco designer liner white and then a coat of Mayco Cotton Tail 2167 Clear over top	Top Left: Mignight Ceramics Malibu Barbara Top Right: Laguna 60 Mignight Ceramics Malibu Barbara Bottom Left: Midnight Ceramics Bogeyman Bottom Right: Midnight Ceramics Wine About It
Laguna 60 Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco designer liners white, blue, red, light green 2167 clear	Laguna 60 Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco designer liners white, red, brown 2167 clear
Laguna 60 Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco designer liners white, blue, red, green 2167 clear	Left: Laguna 60 Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco designer liners white, blue, red, black 2167 clear Right: Midnight Ceramics Malibu Barbara
Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco designer liners white, blue, red, black, light green, green, yellow 2167 clear	Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco designer liners red, light green, orange 2167 clear
Speckled b-mix Mayco designer liners red, white, light green Nose: Mayco Cutie Pie Coral Mayco Northern Woods x2 2167 Clear	Speckled b-mix Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco designer liners white, blue, red, green, yellow, black 2167 clear
Laguna 60 Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco designer liner red and white 2167 clear	Speckeld b-mix Amaco Poppy x3
Laguna 60 Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco Cotton Tail, Hot Tamale 2167 clear	Colors for Earth Jade, Violet Blue 2167 Clear
Laguna 60 Mayco UG black wiped black Mayco Hot Tamale x3 2167 Clear	Laguna 60 Midnight Ceramics Bogeyman x2
Laguna 60 Coyote Oatmeal x3	Laguna 60 KY Mudworks Hydra x3 Mayco Light Flux x2
Mayco Underglaze Fire Engine Red, Snapdragon x2 In the middle Mayco Sunkissed, Orange A Peel in the middle 2167 clear all over	So pretty, but crack :(

So originally my plan was to take all of last week off of work and do a ton of pottery stuff. I was going to make some things, I was finally going to use my raku kiln, and I was going to glaze to get ready for the Howard County Holiday Mart. Work had other things in mind for me. I ended up getting to take off half a day on Wednesday, but then I ended up working Sunday evening to get ready for a workshop. C'est la vie.

However, since I got Friendsgiving out of the way the Saturday before Thanksgiving that left me with enough time to glaze and get ready for the show. I had a ton of holiday stuff that ended up filling 2 kilns with a bit spilling over into a third. The second is cooling now (pictures to come later this week) and my plan is to unload and fire the third tonight. The third kiln will have some other things I had on my shelves waiting to be fired that aren't holiday (elephant ears!), but there was enough that didn't fit in that I wanted to fire again even if it's not packed as tightly as normal.

As this is the first year I've been selling this is the first time I've done a holiday show. I don't quite know what to expect. How much are people looking for holiday specific things or just gifts for others. Packing for it later this week will be interesting.

A while back I ended up with a Tunisian crochet hook. It's been in my bag of hooks for probably a year. A few weeks ago I decided - that's it I'm going to learn how to do this thing. I had some leftover light purple yarn that looked about the right weight for my 6mm Tunisian crochet hook. It's leftover first from a sweater I made myself and then from a matching sweater I made River.

I remembered that Heart Hook Home had done a bunch of Tunisian crochet and I started with the Simple Crochet tutorial. The key to Tunisian crochet is that on one row you pick up all the stitches onto you're hook and then in the reverse row you get them all off your hook until you're back to one. I did maybe 12 inches of the simple tunisian crochet and I found that it was curling like made. As I did some research I found that this is actually perfectly normal for this stitch. This is actually one of the things that I didn't like about some knitting stitches. I frogged everything.

I then then found the Heavenly Hyggee Hat Pattern and learned the knit and the purl stitches. A few things that I realized. First - OMG does the knit and purl look like it's actually knitting and not crochet. It makes sense given how you do it, but I was expecting it to be quite so similar. Second, when I was doing the simple stitch I kept dropping stitches, but by doing a pattern of 2 knit and 2 purl for the hat, I never dropped stitches. Third, as fast as I am at crochet from lots of practice, I am slow at this. A crochet hat would probably take me 1-2 hours. This took me way way more than that. Fourth, a big part of the problem was that I would be doing this while on zoom calls. Then I would loose track of whether I was in the forward row or the back row. Lots o' frogging!


I do not know exactly what yarn this is, but it is a worsted weight yarn. For the hat I cast on 62 stitches and made it about 80 rows. Then I stitched up the side and closed the top. Later once I had finished the scarf I added 6 rows around the bottom with the multi-colored yarn and then added the pom at the top.




For the scarf I cast on 26 stiches and I used all the light purple yarn I had left which gave me 158 rows. It was not long enough for a scarf so I searched out a yarn that ws the same weight and matched the color. I am not certain what this yarn is, but I'm fairly certain it's 4th of July from Briar Rose Fibers. It is possible the light purple is the same, but I can't be sure.

I changed colors on the side and went until I thought it would be the right length which was 94 rows. Then I flipped it over picked up my 24 stitches and continued on. The join is barely noticeable. If it isn't obvious I did 94 rows on this side too. I think it could do wiht a big of blocking, but overall I'm really please with how the set turned out.




This being a holiday week this will likely be my last post until next Monday. We'll see, maybe a kiln sneak peak over the weekend depending on how the timing works out. Happy Thanksgiving!

A few weeks ago someone turned me onto Shein. This was both great and expensive. I immediately bought $40 worth of placemats. The one that made this bowl was described as a placemat, but I have no idea how you'd use it as one in real life. It's really 3D, a bowl or plate would not lay flat on it.

However, it makes amazing pottery texture I draped this over my wok mold and added a foot. I'm really excited to see the finished product.

Everything I make with cardinals and birches flies off the shelf. I decided to try to make some larger items and see if those sell as I've noticed I don't sell nearly as many large platters as I do small plates. I really like how this platter turned out. The rim template is a cutter from De La Designs.