Always the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving!
Saturday, November 21st & Sunday, November 22nd – 10:00am-6:00pm

Still trying to finish things up… cleaning, sorting, pricing, staining, gluing, building shelves, and carrying all of my pottery up three flights of stairs. All for this weekend’s Holiday Home Show with pottery in every room of my condo AND the back porch too! If you’re in the Chicago area this weekend, feel free to stop by to kick-off your holiday shopping! Or just to say “Hi” and to enjoy the apple cider & comfort of my couch?!

A dark & uneventful start to the morning…

The wind was blowing fast this morning, but the sunrise was slow.
Just s few clouds early on building to a grand crescendo.

Layers of silhouetted clouds on the golden sky.
Followed by beautiful sunbeams streaming through.

Two wall masks “snuck” their way into my soda kiln. They were a last minute RUSH project. Pushing my luck by making them fresh last Tuesday night before class. And then putting them right into a bisque at the end of that same class!!! More than a little damp still, but they survived. Glazed them and loaded them Friday. Soda-fired Saturday. Out of the kiln Monday night – less than a week from start to finish!!! Whew… and not suggested. Here’s a quick glimpse of them “before” as they were loaded into the soda kiln, and then “after” the soda firing. Just in time for the Holiday Home Show this weekend.

As part of our last class, we also had a fun exchange of cups, saucers & mugs.
My contribution to the trading game was the class demo with marbled clay…
fired unglazed on the exterior to show the marbling, with Shaner White glazed interior.

My take-home-from-the-trade was this sweet cup & saucer by my student Catherine.
Thrown with porcelain, some underglaze accents of color and a thinly sprayed layer of Shaner Clear glaze. Great trade. Great cup. Thank you Catherine for the “upgrade”!!!

Summer is definitely over… as proven by the latest selection of OREO flavors!!!
Tonight was the last class of the Fall pottery session. We celebrated with a fun potluck…
with some obligatory Oreo’s!!! No surprise there, huh???

Unloading the kiln is always a weird mix of excitement.
A fun treasure hunt to see everything coming out. But kind of a hurry to get it all done. Unloading all of the pots, packing them up, cleaning the kiln, scraping the shelves, re-kiln washing, sweeping up and all of the other “glamorous parts” of the process that no one thinks about. So many of my pieces go straight from the kiln and into a box to get them home.

Pretty excited about the latest batch of spoons & ornaments.
I’ll have time to really look a them later… for now it’s time to clean & scrape!!!

Three stamped “treasures’ that came out of my latest soda kiln.
Love the colors, the flashing slips and the soda sheen.
Stamped, concentric and ready for their “Big Debut” at next weekend’s Holiday Home Show… at my place… hence the name.

Beautiful colors & calico clouds. Layers of colors making the morning bike ride
pretty darn SPECTACULAR!!!

Beautiful colors early on with indigo skies and a beautiful glow on the horizon.