Friday

Good morning!  It's a bit dull out there right now but the weather forecast is positive and as for tomorrow, the expected temperature just keeps going up!  Yesterday was gorgeous, all warm sunshine and gentle breezes.  A true English summer's day.

I popped off to Infants' Sports Morning feeling very cheerful; and it was a lovely time.  All those little legs running and jumping nineteen to the dozen and little arms throwing for length and accuracy, faces alight with happiness, waving to parents and friends and there were surprisingly few tears.  A lovely atmosphere all round - well done Dee and team and very well done, children.

By the time I got home it was almost lunchtime so I got the bedding out of the tumble dryer, pegged it out and then enjoyed my lunch in the sunshine.  It took very little time to dry so, not long afterwards, in it came again and I ironed the lot.  It's so quick and easy on these lovely days.

I started thinking about what I want to make in pottery in the future so did some googling and printed out some photos.  I have a few ideas.  I want to make some plates, seeing as I have just started learning how to do that, I'd like to make a vase and I'd like to make some pasta bowls - all sort of 'rustic', using terracotta clay.

Viv, this is the dish I really loved.

I was shocked at how expensive it was.  I found other photos of the sort of shapes I wanted and took some photos of the ivy plant I had in my bathroom as I want to make a cylindrical vase and decorate it with ivy.

More about pottery below.

Tuition was great.  This week is the penultimate one for my longest standing student as after next week I'm on holiday and then it's the last week of the school year and Junior Disco is on Thursday evening.  He can't miss the leavers' bbq and disco. 
Then he's off for adventures at secondary school.

While my second student was working through an 11+ paper, Paul the Painter arrived.  Paul has done work for me before, he's a lovely chap, and he will be finishing off my bathroom by painting the ceiling, door and frames.  He was going to do it next week but has an unexpected free morning today.  He'd come for the key as I won't be in. 

Then I was off to pottery!
Oh, I did enjoy it yesterday.  I had taken with me a plate and saucer from the set I use most of the time so I could match up the glaze colour for my not-leaf bowl - there wasn't anything that really caught the eye but I think I found something will work (fingers crossed).  It'd better because I've done it now, glazed the bowl which has turned out so much better than I thought it would after all the struggles I had.  They say you learn best through your mistakes and that's certainly true of this item.  I find glazing really hard - I never know how the glaze is going to behave - it's all very confusing.

The terracotta bird bath bowl was also ready for glazing and I learnt that glaze behaves differently depending on the clay you use, something I hadn't actually realised.    Anyway, for a first attempt, it was OK.  Satisfyingly rustic and a bit uneven (which is what I wanted as it's for the garden) and glazing it was very satisfying.  The glaze covered easily and dried quickly and the texture is pleasing.

So next week, I should have two finish items to photograph and show off!

Alex (tutor) and I had a chat about what to make next, I showed her the bowl photo above and she reckons it's very natural, just how the clay cracks and behaves as it is curved around the base.  She said the difficulty would be not losing that effect while you smoothed off what needs smoothing and I see what she means.  She also mentioned minimal glazing and a few other things she will need to repeat at the appropriate time.

Anyway, I decided to have a go at getting the right shape, just checked that I had the order of things right and set to work and by the end of the evening I had a half decent tapas/pasta bowl sort of shape made, not great, very uneven but it's a start and can only get better!.  I investigated using my tools to get different textures for the outside using scraps of rolled out clay and managed something that looks a bit like bark so next time I might give that a whirl.  If it doesn't work it can go back in the bin and I can try again.  After my mistake with the leaves drying out, I wrapped this bowl in wet J cloths before covering in cling film so, hopefully, it won't dry out.
I have so many ideas now, I HAVE to book next term!

Today, I'm off to Suzanne's late morning, after my lovely house sitter arrives so before then I will be busy packing, getting the house tidy, revisiting my route and generally sorting myself out so I had better get going.  Don't be too concerned if there's no blog tomorrow or Sunday.  It depends on Suzanne's connection and how much time I have..  I'll definitely be back on Monday though.

Have a lovely day and a great weekend.