back in the saddle...

  Well, it seems like forever since I touched clay, but I am back at it...sort of.  For those of you who know me, you know that the last 6 months have been difficult.  The love of my life was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular disease called Myasthenia Gravis.  We've been living in and out of the hospital, touring all the different ICU rooms, and spending so much time there that we know the doctor's schedules as well as they do. 

  Hit me up if you need to know which days are the best at the cafeteria...  But I'm hopeful we are out of the woods.  Tam's surgery to remove the tumor in her thymus went well and we are hoping for a complete remission.  She's doing well, and I appreciate all the prayers and well wishes you have given us.  This is a pottery blog, so I won't get too deep into the medical stuff, but in the fall I'll have a few pieces available where the proceeds will be donated to the National Myasthenia Foundation of America for help in research and developments in hopes of finding a cure for MG. ( for more information about MG visit www.myasthernia.org )

  Okay, back to the pottery part of this...I'm back!  One might even say I'm "back in the saddle" so to speak.  I'm working on a few horse themed items as I was inspired by my mom & Tommy's relocation to my cousins' farm.  Belveu is home to some of the most beautiful Walking Horses you'll ever see, along with an alpaca, some cows, several dogs, a bee hive or two, and a whole host of kiddos to keep everyone in line. 

  But not to worry, I haven't forgotten the most important things in life...like coffee!  There will be plenty of mugs available this fall for the 15th Annual Hilton Homeplace Sale. (Can you believe it's been 15 years? Neither can I!)  The Hilton Homeplace crew suffered a tremendous loss this year when our beloved Jerry Hedspeth passed away after a long fight with Pancreatic Cancer.  He was loved by many and will be missed by us all.  Our condolences and prayers go out to Sybil and her family.  Here's to sunnier and healthier days in the future for us all! 

I still hate balloons...

  Finally back playing in the mud a little.  I managed to make a few new coffee cups with fun little messages inside and came up with a new idea how to get the words to stand out a little better.  I'll underglaze them before I bisque and that way I can sand off any excess when they are leather hard making the color more distinct.  (keep your fingers crossed this is still just a theoretical fix) So after a good day of turning I had quite a few "word mugs" ready for the test.

The good news is, this idea appears to have worked out quite well...Once bisqued the words came out much darker and more detailed than the mugs I've tried in the past.  Hopefully, this theoretical fix will actually work.  

Next step is to figure out how to glaze the insides clear so the words are still visible and manage to glaze the outside in other colors.  I started with the clear interiors...so far so good.  (but the hard part is next) 

So I saw this really cool idea online. (stop laughing, I know you all do that too) In this guy's post he was using a balloon to keep from getting the glaze on the insides of his mugs, a problem I am intimately familiar with when trying to glaze the inside and outside 2 different colors.  

  The joke here is that I really hate balloons...REALLY hate balloons.  When I was a District Manager my store teams used to call and ask where I was going to be on event day because if it was their store then they knew there were NO BALLOONS!

  I had to give it a try...and guess what, it's really awkward, and a little scary, but it works!  Stay tuned to see if these mugs survive their battle with the kiln (the kiln is always the enemy!)

  I don't know that I am quite ready to give up my dipping tongs, but I may have a little less hatred for the balloons after this endeavor...until next time, stay muddy my friends!

Dr. Wheel-good...

  Ok, so I haven't posted in a while...make that a long while...and I haven't turned anything in quite a long while, but I decided TODAY was the day!  

  Apparently the universe had different plans...dad turns on a tall wheel he built 30 some odd years ago...he says it's better for your back, but to me it's just too tall and I enjoy the variable speed foot pedal this one doesn't have...(see below) I prefer the standard shorter Brent CXC wheel (to the right of gigantor the too tall turning tractor seat wheel) ok, back to the point...

  Dad takes the smaller wheel to shows occasionally to do live throwing demonstrations, (sooooo not on my agenda anytime in the near future) and today we needed to get the wheel off the back of the trailer and back in the shop.  Except that when we did, the aforementioned variable speed foot pedal no longer worked...well, that's not entirely accurate...it worked, there just wasn't any variable speed, in fact there was only on...no off...hmmmmm, could be an issue?

(Gigantor tractor seat dad wheel = left; reasonable normal height wheel = right)

After a short discussion about why cutting off the pedal from the other wheel we use for trimming and reattaching it to this wheel might temporarily fix the problem, but wasn't a great idea...since long after he and his electrical "rigging" skills are gone I am going to have to deal with the fallout...

So he goes digging around and manages to find the EXACT part he needed to repair properly...(imagine that) So the wheel Dr goes to work:

So while I entertain the cat, dad Macgyver's the wheel pedal and all is back to operational...perhaps the NEXT time will be more productive (but not likely to be as entertaining!) 

I can handle this...

  Finally...I sat down at the wheel today and actually turned a few pieces.  My last several attempts were complete failures...dad says some days it works and the other days you just close the shop door and go back to the house. 

  I was pleased that today the lumps of mud stood up and actually looked like a cylinder.  (The walls were even close to the same thickness on both sides!) ha!

  So I turned those cylinders into coffee mugs!  Well...I turned those cylinders into coffee holding cups...ugh, I hate pulling handles.  I know you can extrude them, but they are never just what I want, and the scale always seems off.  So, after I let them dry as long as I could (some may also refer to this step as procrastination) it was time to attach handles.

I think they turned out ok...now as long as they survive the firing! (Famous last words...) maybe the kiln fairy will trim them for me so they don't become coffee holding cups again? Ha! 

I have gone nuts!

...well, I've gone acorns to be more precise. I spent today working on a few hand built pieces rather than turning.

I made a few of these acorn spoon rests before the Holiday that were kinda cute, so I thought I might make a few more...that is until my pattern decided it wasn't going to work exactly the way I had planned...(we will blame the tool not the user, ha) anyway...with some minor modifications I was able to make about 2 dozen acorn spoon rests.