Getting ready for an evening of trimming… one of my favorite parts of the process. There’s something soothing & meditative when you’re “refining” the bottoms of your pots. Especially when you have good tools to make your job easier. Still loving my collection of trimming tools from DiamondCore Tools… always sharp for crisp clean footrings!

Getting ready for a big trimming session… lots of mugs to be trimmed tonight! And thankful for my Giffin Grip every time I pull it out… it’s been well-used & well-loved. One of my favorite tools in the studio… makes trimming so much faster & more fun too!!!

Spent some time in the studio tonight stamping patterns into my latest batch of mugs!

One of my Beginning Wheel students had a glaze run & some kiln wash on the bottom of her bowl. She was trying her best to get it off… and then I offered up my DiamondCore Grinding Bat for Carly to borrow. We put it on her wheel, wet the pot & the bat… and then spun really fast & pressed the bowl down!!! Voila’… smooth & clean! One of the best tools ever… thank you DiamondCore!!!

Well, the first batch of SHAMROCK MUGS has been set off into the world! The rest will hopefully go out Monday morning. With a HUGE THANKS to everyone who did a little “window-shopping” & to those who actually did some shopping last night during my online Facebook sale. They all went pretty fast… and it looks like there is only one lonely Shamrock Mug left… still looking for a good home!

Okay, so the “sugar cubes” are gone… and I’m still intrigued by Robin’s progess on her collaboration pieces for “4×4”. Looks I might need to wait until next weekend along with everyone else to see how this all comes together. I have a few ideas… only because I’ve been working on my own pieces with the same theme. But my pieces don’t look anything like this?! …ha!!!

So this weekend has been part of the LILLSTREET 3-DAY SODA-FIRING WORKSHOP. I have a great group of students with most of them firing their work in a soda kiln for the first time! There’s so much to learn & we’re just trying to squeeze it all in! Friday night we met up, talked soda, and then started glazing & wadding right away!

It was a very long night… since we also had to load the entire kiln & brick up the door. My group were “rock stars” with everyone pitching in… even as we went well past the “posted” end time! They all had a great time, worked really hard & soaked in as much as they possibly could! We got ALL of their work into the kiln… so I’m hoping they each get a bunch of beauties out when we unload Monday night!

So I’ve been glazing the latest batch of “hybrid mugs” in preparation for this weekends Soda-Firing Workshop. A simple liner glaze of tenmoku… and then I had to decide which ones to leave raw outside, and which ones need a bit more lovin’ & a bit more colored glaze accents before soda-firing.

Looks like my talented friend & master metalsmith Sarah Chapman is still working on her collaboration pieces for our “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” gallery show next weekend in Evanston. I can’t wait to see Sarah’s, Darlys’s & Robin’s pieces when they all come together. Fingers crossed… I’m still working on mine too!!!

Just a handmade stamp & a pointy piece of wood. Soon enough I had this fully stamped platter ready to start drying more. Still needs to be trimmed… but one step closer to done!