A little Sunday night spruce-up in my studio. I trimmed & slip-painted a few class demo pieces, did some cleaning & pulled out a LOT of reclaimed clay onto my large plaster bat. It’s going to take a couple days for this gloppy pile to dry out a bit before I can start wedging it back into usable clay. But you know it’s my favorite… FREE CLAY!!!

It was quite splash-splashy along the lakefront this afternoon. All of the beaches were flying red caution flags as the waves were dangerously high. But I didn’t care… clear skies & smooth sailing on my newly fixed-up “non-crunchy” bike all along the lakefront bike trail!

Huge THANKS to the fix-it guys at VILLAGE CYCLE CENTER. I was in need of a sudden repair service yesterday… beyond crusty & crunchy! So bad that people were staring & I felt like it was just gonna fall apart if I pedaled too hard! Ha! And today I was back on the road with some new parts & pieces… pedaling smoothly & silently. All thanks to Rus, the team… and my favorite bike shop in Chicago in Old Town.

Gotta love a good mural… especially when it’s crisp & clean with a groovy color palette. Located in a cool lofty warehouse space along the Chicago River. A fun whimsical mural by artist Anthony Lewellen. Just another gazelle leaping through some rings!

Check him out on Instagram – @antckone

The perfect pottery production combo… two of my favorite studio tools in action together! Sharp trimming tools from DiamondCore Tools working along side the Giffin Grip. Smooth ribbons of clay coming right off while anchored down on the wheel & easily centered!

Lots of clouds to start the morning… and more dark clouds moving in. Not much of a sunrise today, but I’m not complaining. I did enough of that last night… as my ride was more than “way fair” this morning. HA!!!

So let me just “vent” for a quick second…
I’m looking to buy some new furniture for my back porch. And everyone has been talking about the new WAYFAIR retail store in Wilmette. So I drove up tonight after work. Very clean. Well displayed. Large store… not many people? Okay, maybe it’s just a Thursday night thing?

So I went to the “Outdoor Furniture” section to find my options. Of course I deliberated over it… trying to picture some furniture settings & combinations in my head. I was even texting photos to a friend for her input at the same time. I finally landed on a bistro table, two matching chairs, and two very fun & very orange comfy side chairs.

So then the real question… now what do I do? There are no shelves of products. There are no instructions. You apparently need to wait to track down a Customer Service person… which there weren’t many of those there either?! I finally found a guy and told him what I wanted to purchase… for more money than I wanted to spend, but I was willing because I think it would look cool back there on my porch. Only to find out that they don’t have any inventory in the store… he would order it for me, ship it and I would receive the pieces in a week or so. Wait… what?! So no difference really from shopping the much larger selection from WAYFAIR online?!

He said the only thing they stock there is basically lamps & small accessories. Everything else you need to order & ship. Doesn’t sound like much of a RETAIL store to me?! I “assumed” it would be more like IKEA where you see the displays, and then go out to the warehouse area to find the parts & pieces you want to buy & take home. Nope!!!

So imagine my surprise when I was trying to navigate my way back to the exit only to find this HUGE cashier check-out area… with no one in any of those lines!!! Because they apparently have nothing to sell there?!!! Huge aisle, huge check-out areas, a couple employees doing nothing… and NO customers trying to buy the “nothing: they sell there?!

Thanks for listening… not a fan…

I feel better now … and I still have no furniture on my back porch!

Time for some more stamping… using one stamp pattern for each pot. Just making each one a little different… all the while hoping the stamps line-up & don’t overlap in some crazy way when I get back around to where I started!!! Fingers crossed…

Just noticed this morning that my favorite plant is blooming already!

It’s a crazy-cool plant that I got a few years ago as a cutting from my plant pals in Peoria. They call it Bear’s Breeches… but I think the real name is Acanthus Spinosus. It’s got really cool leaves… but the flower spikes are AMAZING!!! So excited that it has really taken off & grown so much over the years. I love it!!!

So we tried the newest OREOs in my pottery classes… and both times we landed on “The Dark Side”… meaning red filling! We never got the blue cream?! And while I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan, I am a big OREO fan!!!