Back to some crafty goodness

Now that the show and sale is over, I finally have some time to work on some crafty projects.  Like a lot of people, I’m doing my bit by bringing my own bags to stores.  This is a bag I made with 100% bamboo yarn.  I bought 6 skeins of bamboo yarn a couple of years ago when I first heard about it but I only used one skein for a scarf and the rest got put away in my yarn basket.  When I saw this pattern from Knitty, I knew I had found a great use for my bamboo yarns (OK, my immediate thought was “ooooh, I’ve never worked with hemp yarn before … look at all those pretty colors, I want some!”).  I sort of followed the pattern except I used applied icords as the handles and I switched the garter stitch base to the inside of the bag because I don’t like the look of garter stitches.  I’m already working on my second bag and I think I’ll just keep on knitting bags with my yarn stash and maybe when I’ve made a dent in my stash, I’ll get me some of those cool hemp yarn to play with.

A wonderful long weekend

This is the conversation I had with my sister on Thursday night.

The phone rings.

Sis: Hey, what are you doing this weekend?

Me: (Thinking: I want to finally nail down the baseboards in my bedroom, clean all the windows, basically spend the whole weekend spring cleaning.)  Oh, nothin’ much, just hanging around.

Sis: C (her bf) and I want to come up to Boston.

Me: (!) When?

Sis: Either Friday night or Saturday morning.

Me: (OMG, can I clean the entire house by Friday night?!)  When will you know?

Sis: We haven’t gotten the tickets yet, we’re trying to see if we can find some cheap tickets.

Me: (Oh f#ck, the craft room/guest room is a freaking mess!!) Um, when will you let me know when you guys are coming if you guys do come?

Sis: I’ll call you back.

Me: (I can’t deal with this – I’m gonna watch Law and Order and knit my bag.)

The  phone rings again half an hour later.

Sis: We got tickets!  We’re flying in on Saturday morning!

Me: (Yes, that’ll give me Friday night and Saturday morning to clean the house.)  Cool, see you guys on Saturday.

I ended up just knitting on Friday night and I basically did a “crap relocation” and moved all the crap from the craft/guest room to another room and closed the door on Saturday.  I did get some cleaning done (probably more than I would’ve done if I didn’t have visitors) and had a great time hanging out with my sister and her bf.   We ate too much, complained about our bulging bellies, walked around Boston and Salem, and ate some more.  Oh, and I had time to finish knitting my market bag.  T’was a very good long weekend indeed.

After the Show and Sale

Wow, the show and sale was a great success (for the studio and me)!!  I only had 5 pieces left so that meant I sold about 90% of my inventory.  I also got to meet 2 people (Hi Rose and Melynn!) who left comments on my blog at the show and sale and that was very cool because I’m always interested to see how people’s paths cross.

So what now after the show and sale?  I’ve already started on knitting a grocery bag and I plan on doing some sewing soon.  AND I’m finally going to get my act together and start posting things in my etsy store.  I know, I’ve said it before, but I’m serious this time!!  I’ll probably have more supplies and vintage pieces to sell than my own pieces but I plan to take a ceramics class in the summer so I should have more soap dishes and other stuff later in the summer.  Whew I’m relieved that the show and sale is over but now I’m excited about all the new things that I’ll get to make!

Pottery Show and Sale starts tomorrow!

Here’s my table at the Show and Sale.  I have less than 50 pieces this time and more than half of them are soap dishes.  The Show starts tomorrow and goes until Sunday. 

Almost Show and Sale time

I try to come up with something new for every show and sale.  Here are some new soap dish designs.

I wanted to make divided dishes using the designs I have for my soap dishes and here’s what I came up with. 

This basic shape is made with a stainless steel divided dish I found at the thrift store and I added those circle designs – I’m trying to go for the retro mod look.  My next challenge will be to get these designs on round things like vases and cups! 

Class project – before firing

These are 3 tiles that will be naked raku fired tonight.  This is what they look like before the firing.  The tiles were dipped in slip and glaze.  I used a pencil and a needle tool to etch the drawings on them.  I still need to work on them a little more but at least I did them (I’m really bad about participating in class projects)!  Our class will have a wall installation full of these tiles at the show and sale – the theme is Growth: a narrative.

If all goes well, I should have pictures of the finished tiles tomorrow!

Stacked

I didn’t make it to the studio like I had planned yesterday so I still have 9 bowls that need to be glazed.  Looks like I’ll be going to the studio every night this week if I want to get these done!  I’m working on a new pattern that involves using latex resist and multiple glazes – I won’t be able to tell if that’ll work until they come out of the kiln – I’m too lazy to do test tiles … it’s all or nothin’!