week 49 - Christmas gifts & cards!

I had fun this week making some of my own christmas cards with some fancy stamps and metallic ink... the stamps were quarter-circle shaped, and invited to be tesselated or reproduced in the round. It was fun! Look for one in a mailbox near you!





And a few more things came out of the kiln...a pretty Christmas ornament with a bit a of a tricolour braid (plait). She will look so nice on my tree!



Also my kitchen windowsill herb planters emerged - this is the one I made for my kitchen!



And the one I made as a gift...it came out really well, the colours are just right I think! I can't wait to see it in-situ!



And lastly, some ceramic napkin rings. I saw someone else at the studio making these, so I thought I had to do some for myself... I have chosen a nice dark blue glaze which should look really great in my dining room!



Hopefully they are fired before Christmas, I have a few things waiting to be fired.
If these work well, maybe I will be making these as Xmas presents for next year??
they were quick and fun to do, and it would be easy to use lots of textured patters on them, these ones have a burlap/hessian texture!

week 48 - More glazing, not very exciting this week...

I am in a mad rush to get everything finished and in the kiln before Xmas (esp the things that are Xmas presents!) so I have been glazing again. Not very exciting. Sorry all you dedicated followers!

I glazed the letters that I was commissioned to make - I did a few extras and doubles of most letters so I have extras in case they go wrong or something in the kiln. They are looking good!



And I found a few more Xmas ornaments knocking around so I glazed them in a nice torquoise earthenware glaze that sort of separates and gets an orange skin texture...they other ones I did looked really good.


And then finally I glazed my blob bowls now since I had that successful test tile with the white tin glaze.
I really like these, the texture is great with the different blobs and how they show up, esp at the rim. It is nice there are two of them!

week 47 - Craft Fair Success!!!

After feeling really stressed and overwhelmed, the Kirkgate Studios & Workshop stall at our local craft fair came off really well - I should have not been so worried! We had way too much stuff to sell...I think we overdid it on different kinds of items, but we will be more targeted next year!

Knitted mittens, hats and soft toys:


Pottery & Jewellery:


We sold £466.50 worth of items, which I think is fantastic. The fair was busy but the other market traders said that people were not buying as much as in previous years - but we couldn't complain!

We have another 2 days to sell the remaining stock (we have so much left!) at Shipley Market on Dec 10 and 11th! Come along if you weren't able to make it last weekend to Saltaire!

week 46 - plugging along till Xmas...

Well my last batch of Xmas decorations came out of the kiln...I think I have made almost 150 of them! I had 30 packs ready for sale each with 5 ornaments in!



Also I had some test tiles emerge from the kiln. The top one is a tester for my blob bowls, just to be doubly sure how the white glaze would react with the bowls...I am really pleased, now I just have to get the two bowls glazed! The darker spots are the green slip, the paler spots (also green) are the blue slip...there is some copper in the blue slip, so that must be why it has reacted that way. The ornaments below are some I made for myself using up the last of my slip that I rolled into long snakes and then braided. They look really good I think!



And finally these test tiles came out for the blue and yellow herb planter. I am glad I tested as the colours did not really react as I thought! I should be able to get it to look like the one on the bottom right with blue and sort of a buttery yello. Then I moved on to glazing the box and putting it on the shelves ready for firing. It should be fired in time for Xmas, I hope!!

week 45 - Craft Fair Setup Day

Ten lovely ladies worked extremely hard this weekend to price, categorize, package and label over 400 items for sale in the upcoming craft fair in Victoria Hall on 20 November. Our stock includes Ceramics, Textiles (mainly knitting & Crochet) & Jewellery made using our Egyptian Paste & Felted beads.

What an amazing day - it was so satisfying to see everything we have all worked so hard on laid out and ready to go. I think everyone felt proud. I certainly did.

Now we just have to sell it all!!

Please PLEASE come and support us on Nov 20th at Victoria Hall in Saltaire if you are able. I promise that you won't be disappointed. The prices range from £12 to £1.50 so there really is something for everyone, and LOADS of great gift ideas for the whole family!

Ceramics laid out -


All our knitted/fabric wares including toys and about 30 pairs of fingerless mittens.


Jewellery stand - the large grecian bust is for display, the other 4 heads are for sale.


Dinah hard at work putting prices on the back of the pottery.


Gill crafting name tags and stories for her sock monsters.


Mock-up of how the stand might look on the day.

week 44 - My first ceramics commission!!

While over at a friends house last week, I met a nice lady and got talking to her about my artwork and ceramics. She was very interested in the set of letters that I said I had made for Paul last year for Xmas.

This week she contacted me by email and asked me to make the letters for three names: Fred, Buddy and Layla. And viola, just like that, I had my first ceramics commission!!

Cutting out the letters - this takes time and patience. You have to wait until just the right moment to get the letters out of the plastic cutters. If the clay is too wet, the don't hold their shape, too dry and they break.


My herb container is glazed and ready for firing - The glaze I chose is white, so it matches the other ones I made earlier this year.


For the second planter, I had to do some test tiles to double check the colours. I am going for butter yellow and blue in order to coordinate with the kitchen colours of the lucky recipient!
Of course their are never test tiles for the two glazes you want, so I did some tests.

week 43 - Cliffe Castle Outing

A group of us from KS&W made an outing to Cliffe Castle in Keighley to see an artist talk by Naseem Darbey and a sculpture exhibition by Nicola Hicks.

http://www.bradfordmuseums.org/venues/cliffecastle/exhibitions.php

It was a really good day out to a local stately home that I have never been to before -- the artist talk was fabulous and the sculpture exhibition was very good. It also gave us a chance to see the permanent exhibition in Cliffe Castle! I think I will be going back.

Beautiful buildings and grounds...




Our group(minus me, I was taking the shot)


Traditional Interiors of Cliffe Castle






Naseem Darbey at work at the showing machine showing her process, which uses a water soluable fabric.


Sample piece where the 'fabric' is being washed away


Some other work of Naseems on show in Cliffe Castle:




Nicola Hicks sculpture. What I would call barnyard sculpture - what would you make if you had lots of straw and mud to hand??? Some nice references to fairy tales and storytelling...








Check out the texture:

week 42 - Stars, trees and angels on sticks

Had a good day today, went to pottery to find a few things out of the kiln.

My two herb plant containers are looking good!


And they were filled with all the Xmas decorations I had made recently.


First of the blob bowls! Looking really good. I have the second one in for bisque firing and have done a test tile also for the glaze.


Inside of the bowl, I really like how the coloured slip is coming through and sort of looks mottled and marbled. It should look really cool when they are glazed, sort of smokey if they glaze and slip react the way I expect.


Spent a few hours glazing the Xmas decorations because the art sale on 20 Nov is not far away!! In addition to stars, there are trees, angels and hearts. I had a little production line going and they all fit on the bead racks. I wasn't sure I had enough space at first!