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 : )