A ring vase

I'm so excited, I've finally got some finished versions of this ring vase. This one is now available in my folksy shop.

Don't the pink flowers just make you think of summer...or Hawaii?!?

Midweek Making

It's been a busy day today. I made this! It's a ring shaped vase, some will have more holes and others will have just one. It's a miracle it came out of the mould but I'm glad I persevered with it. I'm quite excited about finishing it.
The vase above came out of the mould below that I made about a year ago and hadn't had much success with getting a whole piece out of it. By the laws of mould making it shouldn't really work as the clay shrinks around the centre of the mould and sticks to it often resulting in cracking. When I've tried it before it's always broken, i think it was because i was too hasty trying to get it out, this time i left it to dry for 3 days and it worked. Hope i can get a few more out over the next week and fire and glaze them to add to my shops.

I also found some time to make some raspberry vodka. I've been meaning to make some for ages and have only just got around to it. Just the look of all that sugar makes me want to clean my teeth. I've got to let it mature for 3 months, might try and make it longer as we still have 4 litres of sloe vodka from a few years ago that we should drink first.

When i was searching for a recipe i came across a really informative blog called The Cottage Smallholder, it's written by a lady called Fiona Nevile and is about her journey towards being partially self sufficiency. Check it out for some great recipes and food ideas, it's a really interesting read.

The weekend....

It's been a busy weekend. I managed to spend some time making pots, visiting an open studios event, make some homemade soup and buy a new car!

These are the pots I'm currently working on. They are the same mould as the button pots i make but they've got a row of texture on instead of buttons. I made some prototypes earlier in the year and they had a good response so I'm building up some stock for Christmas.

I've also made a new vase, I'm phasing the popular large one out as I've made enough now, hopefully this will take it's place. Only made half the mould....it's a long process. This is the first half, when it's finished I'm going to show the complete process so you can see all the steps involved.

More messy stuff but in the kitchen this time, something i made earlier....from this....

to this.... Yummy potato soup (you're lucky you didn't have to clean it all up!). We have veg overload at the moment as family members are harvesting their allotments. I'm trying to find more recipes as to try to use it all up. I also made courgette and mint soup but it wasn't so nice but will be eaten sometime, probably when we have no other food in the house!

Off to pay for a new car, will blog about the open studio event and my purchase from Penny Spooner later this week.