Wahsega Valley Farm

Party hair and pots

The waves I created from the bee-butt buns that I wrote about in my last post turned out very well. And, here it is three days later and I still have waves and my hair still feels about twice as thick. I wish I could bun up my hair like that more often, but I'm too lazy for that. (Well, I'm really not at all lazy; I just have way too many other things to do!) You wavy people are so lucky! Here is a picture of how the waves looked at 11:00 pm after getting home from the party and having not combed it in about three hours. It had gotten a bit ropey and non-homogenized, if you know what I mean. The waves had fallen out by about 75% (they started out very bouncy), but stayed about as wavy as in this picture for two days - even after sleeping on it. How cool is that? I had the other side pulled back with one of my new FranceLuxe combs and it held all night and looked stylin'. Ha.

In pottery news, I got back two cool pots this past weekend! I spent half the day at the pottery place (though class has officially ended for this session) glazing some pieces to finish them up before next class and picked up two glazed pieces that were ready. I'm pretty much pleased with these two at least on some levels. The brown one is really wonky and looks like it belongs in a lopsided Dr. Seuss house or something and the top is too small for it, but I love the glaze I put on it. It's brown and mottled looking with lots of variation -as you can see in the picture. I like the design on the other pot, but the glaze isn't as interesting to me, though it's a very pretty blue. And the top fits perfectly. At least they weren't burnt like my old favorite pot though, so I'm happy. And I can't wait to start my next class!

I am frantically trying to get all my Christmas gifts made - and then I can relax a bit. I'm hoping that by the end of this weekend I'll be finished with most everything. After Christmas I'll post some of what I've been making since I can't do that now - because someone might see their gift here!

My internet at home has been down for the past two days because of some malfunction at AT&T, I heard on the news this morning. It affected the whole southeast of the US! How can that happen? What if I was running a web-based business? We're already very unhappy with AT&T for other reasons (including no customer service), but this was out of the balllpark. Might be time for a change...

Burnt pot

My poor, poor little pot... my most favorite up until last week when it was incinerated. It was my first pot with a lid, and I made a most special handle for it - that was kind of cross between an aloe and sea urchin. I loved it. It was very "tactile". I wish I'd taken a picture of it before it was glaze-fired because it was so cool looking. Now it looks like a charred, dripping wound of a pot. so sad. The handle now reminds me of some alien insect's tentacles and looks most untouchable and, dare I say, downright mean. Hard horny thorns is what they now are. The glaze was supposed to be green. If you look closely, you can see a little green there. And, it's pitted and bumpy - and looks as though if you touched it, you'd be stuck like brer rabbit was to tar baby.

I walked into the kiln room puffed with anticipation until I spotted the burnt-out carcass. There were others, but mine was the worst. Some had huge pieces of the kiln shelving stuck to their bottoms where the glaze had melted onto the shelf - though the glaze colors seemed fine. I can imagine the owner of those pots trying to figure out a way to incorporate a big chunk of white kiln shelving with their otherwise perfect-looking pot. "Surely there's a way!" My pot had been chiseled off the shelf and had chunks missing from the bottom of it.

Seems that someone "over fired" the kiln and everything got ruined.

Well, as my teacher, Mage, says, "it's just 'clay'!" She didn't say that when I showed her my pot though; she knew better. I had steam shooting out of my ears. And, I'm a patient, understanding kinda girl. It's just that the over-firing on top of the ugly glaze issues made me want to pack my bags and take a class elsewhere. Which I am investigating.

So, now I'm working on a bigger and better pot. And yes, it is just clay. But it only emphasizes the need for my own little studio where I have control. I had kiln back in 1975 and I never once over-fired the thing. And it was back in the days when there were no automatic shut-offs ner nuthin'.

I'm going back to the kiln room today to pick up 2 newly glazed pots and am tempering my enthusiasm with a dose of caution and teeter-tottering hope that they will be fine and actually look the way I want them to. I'm beginning to wonder if that is too much to ask!

Pottery ponderings

I discovered a new tool in my pottery class last Sunday that works like a dream. It's not an official pottery tool like the extruders I have been looking at, but does the job and does it well. Most extruders push out pieces that are way too big for my purposes at this time. This one was found in the children's section at Target and put me back $4.99. It's the Play-Doh Fun Factory - and it is fun. What a deal! I have a hard time rolling out clay "snakes" (they always want to go flat on me) and this tool does them perfectly. I made the handle to the greenware (not yet fired) pot above with the snakes that came out of the Fun Factory. I think I'm in love! It does other equally wonderful shapes too.

And, here are a couple of pots that I've done recently that are... so-so. I'm looking forward to the day when I have a wheel at home so I can practice more. A few hours on Sunday morning just isn't enough - especially since I spend a lot of that time glazing and trimming too. Anyway, the plan is for me to have a little pottery studio at the farm. I'm not sure what I'll do with all the pots I make, but I'm thinking as I get better and better I can sell them. It won't be a big money-making venture; more just a way to pay for my supplies so I can keep doing it. I'd love to make Mike and me a set of our own dishes one day; that would be fun.

I'm still struggling with the glazes in my class. Found out one of them had been mixed wrong for three weeks! So, it wasn't me! Good grief. They are still unpredictable though, even when they are mixed correctly. Here are two glazes that I actually like. But they could look totally different on the next pots I do. So... in addition to needing my own wheel, I need my own kiln too! I used to have one, but that was back in the 1970's. I paid somewhere around $200 for it then and one like it now would be at least $1800! That's just not right.

On the soaping front, I ordered some supplies yesterday from Snowdrift Farm so I can get going next weekend. I wanted to buy some exotic butters and oils, but reasoned that until I have a few soap making successes under my belt it would make more sense to use reasonably priced ingredients. So I got almond, olive, coconut, hempseed and castor oils, along with some mango and shea butters. I was even able to purchase lye, which surprised me because of the crystal meth problem. It's hard to come by because it's so regulated now. I also ordered some sample fragrance oils from Peak to see what I might like of theirs, though I'm very anxious to try some from Oregon Trail. My goodness they have some luscious sounding fragrances. But for now, I'll stick with this first batch of ten I ordered. I'm particularly looking forward to sniffing the Asian Sandalwood. Sounds like my cup of tea.

Glazes and Beans

I like color. I love black and white photos, but for some things it's gotta be color - like the pots I'm making in my pottery class. Black and white glazes just don't float my boat. They have electric kilns there and getting glazes that excite me has been difficult. I like reduction glazes that you get in gas kilns. But for now, this is what I've got to deal with. I started making pinch pots to test the glazes because I was ruining pots by just dipping and praying. They all turned out looking like that yellow-green baby diarrhea. You know the color. Uck. Pinch pots are made by hand, not on the wheel like the pots I'm making in class. I made mine at home while watching an old movie. I just kick back with a wooden cutting board in my lap and pinch pot away. Then I take them to class and bique fire them and then start testing glazes. These are pictures of some of my test pinch pots. There are about five that I really like.

I made some bean stew today; I love it when the weather turns cool. Here is a picture of the beans after they'd soaked for about 5 hours. I think they're gorgeous and go quite well with my glazed pinch pots! I'd take a picture of the finished stew, but the colors aren't so vibrant anymore; it's pretty much brown. Mike isn't crazy about bean stew; he says it tastes like "armpit soup". That's too bad because I love it and tonight he's eating it. It's got my favorite seasoning in it - garam masala. I made my own batch and think it's the most wonderful stuff. It's made of coriander, cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, nutmeg, ginger, pepper, cumin.