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Today my summer camp kids trimmed, stamped, carved, handles and slip decorated their stoneware pots. A lot of work for Day Three of camp… even better as these same pots will be fired, cooled and glazed by the kids on Friday!!!

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Sure, Monday’s eclipse may have been a big deal, but I kinda prefer a “sweet eclipse”!!!

Tasty potluck treats and a delicious sgraffito plate by my teaching assistant Susan Slogoff
for my Tuesday night class.

Tonight was the last class for Beginning & Advanced Beginning Wheeltrowing class.  We ended with a great potluck and a fun “White Elephant” trading-exchanging-stealing game. Everyone brought in a bowl they had made, and then went home with someone else’s. I was excited to come home with this beauty by Kit… a charming stoneware bowl that she carved using my new Zebra Wood Carving Tools from CI Industries.

It’s another week of Summer Camp…
and my wheelthrowing kids have already made a LOT of pots!!!

Big sky show yesterday morning… and no need for special glasses to see THIS one!!!

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Sure, this morning may have been gray & rainy…
but yesterday was pretty amazing! At least until the clouds took over for the day.

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Tonight was the final class for my “Simply Soda” students. Ten weeks of classes and soda-firing fun with mixed results. They’ve enjoyed the challenge and learned a lot about the variables of soda-firing. To finish off our final class, we had a fun potluck feast along with our “Plant & Planter Trading-Exchange Game.” So each student brought in some food… and the planter they made during class with a plant they chose to coordinate with their flower pot.

So here are the plant participants in our fun little trading-exchanging-stealing game!

A beautiful orchid & flower pot by Stacey…

A charming small duo of an African violet & succulent twosome by Taylore…

A ponytail palm and ridged planter by Katie…

Some “unknown plant” in a beautiful flower pot by Jackie…

A round disc succulent and soda-fired flower pot by Ed…

A recently pruned, and soon to bloom? plant in a flower pot by Cecelia…

A sleek wall vase with a miniature mum plant inside by Emily…

A small orchid in a water-erosion-relief pattern flower pot by Patty…

And my stamped & soda-fired planter with beautiful variegated low-light plant…

And then Ryan, Taylore’s better-half, didn’t want to be left out of the fun. So even though he’s not really part of this class (he’s actually in my Tuesday night class), he decided to bring his own “plants” to trade in the game. So he worked up a batch of “dirt” for the potluck! Yummy gummy worms in chocolate pudding and chocolate cookie crumbled “dirt.”

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A very big and well anticipated sky show this afternoon.
Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy here in Chicago… a bit anticlimactic…
but here’s a cool photo of the eclipse from Instagram.
Special thanks to Glynnis Lessing for the clouded eclipse photo!