Thursday 10 December 2015

Pottering along


I've recently done a couple of evenings at a pottery class held up in Brechfa Village Hall.  The suggestion for our first piece was a cup.  However, my hands seem to have different ideas and I ended up making this tilted leaf-shape bowl.  When it came to glazing, I wasn't sure what the colours would look like glazed, but now I have a better idea of how many layers to apply.


This little dish is on ball feet.  The flower petals are just a brush pushed down onto the base to make a design.  Once again, I hadn't a plan to start with, this just evolved.


This bowl owes more than a nod to a Carlton Ware design from the 1930s.  The specks in the middle are made with a special glaze pencil.

I am looking forward to going back in the New Year and learning a bit more and improving my techniques.

Meanwhile, we have a viewing on the house coming up between now and Christmas.  Originally we just had 24 hours' notice for a viewing, which would have meant pretty well staying up all night to get everything straight.  Fortunately that has been altered, but we have still been working flat out to get everything ship-shape again.  Every dry moment has been spent outside, sweeping up leaves, weeding, scouring moss on an area of rough concrete in the yard, moving recycling piles out of sight until we get to the Tip at the weekend.  The stable yard is now tidy, and the front driveway, and I hope to carry on with my Autumn garden tidy up which had ground to a halt with day after day of rain.

Of course, when I went up in the attic, there had been another Cluster Fly invasion - it looked like one of the Plagues of Egypt up there and took me 3 hours with the vacuum to sort it out.  Yesterday afternoon, though bejeebered after spending 2 hours in the stable yard with my OH, a broom, and a hose and a never-ending pile of leaves, I tidied up the Junk Room so you can actually see an area of carpet again (!) and then went down to The Old Dairy, which became mum's flat.  That is now all ship shape too, so I am getting there.  Cleaning our many windows is very time-consuming, but I will get them all done this weekend.  I've done the Velux windows in the roof so far.  At least it will be tidy for Christmas : )

13 comments:

  1. Good luck with the viewing - fingers crossed and don't work too hard. The little pottery things you have made are very pretty, it must all be a new experience, the colour changing in the firing.

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  2. I am looking forward to our next sessions its been fun learning a new craft, I have no intentions of buying a kiln I dont think I will be a pottery, its just lovely to play without being serious.

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  3. Lovely pot work. Are you planning on a big move, staying in the area, bew beginnings?

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  4. Good Luck with the house viewing :) Love the pottery bowls - the first one reminds me of Carlton Ware too.

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  5. Lovely pottery..a definite talent there. Hope the viewing goes well, hope you don't move too far away though.xx

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  6. I love the colours of your pottery - absolutely beautiful. Good luck with the viewing. Jx

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  7. That pottery is brilliantly clever stuff, will you be adding them to your unit to sell if you make lots more, or are they just to keep

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  8. ...........and forgot to say Good Luck with the viewing. Fingers crossed for a purchaser soon

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  9. Good luck for the viewing! It sounds like you've a small mansion to sort!!
    I'll be seeing you on The Great British Pottery Throw Down on bbc2 next series!

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  10. Those pots are amazing BB - do keep showing us anything you make.
    Hope things go really well with the house viewing.

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  11. I used to enjoy pottery class when I was a kid on saturday mornings. I even made one or two things that are still kicking around at my folks place - a coil pot and a bowl.

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  12. Thanks everyone for the positive thoughts about the viewing. Let's hope they DO make another appt. Rachel - 6,000 square feet of it, on 3 1/2 floors . . . Hard to keep on top of! The attic i could just shut the door on, apart from those blasted flies.

    Louise and Maria - we are planning to move to the Welsh Borders/Herefordshire. Around Ross-on-Wye would suit us so we could quickly be on a fast road up to Yorkshire, where our eldest daughter now lives (and t'other one will probably be in Bristol in the New Year).

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  13. Good Luck with the viewing.
    I love your pottery. Please keep showing us what you are working on.

    cheers, parsnip

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