It was the last night of class, and we had already critiqued & judged the final project…. but I still had one more trick up my sleeves. With two of my studetns getting married this Spring, and wanting to make ceramic vases to share with all of their guests… I figured what better way than with a THROWDOWN assembly line?! So we all buckled down and started cranking out as many vases as we could during the remainder of class. Everyone had a great time working & chatting together. A perfect way to end our class!

And our lovely “hand model” Susan…

And here’s Jacob, the Groom-To-Be, putting some final touches on a cylinder by carving some patterns into it with our favorite DiamondCore Carving Tool.

And here’s Molly, the Bride-To-Be, who “apparently” didn’t get the memo that they were all making small vases out of extruded tubes?! What’s with that???

And here they are by the end of class… approximately half of what they’re hoping to get finished in the next month or so… as the wedding is later this Spring!!!

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Yep, it’s been a BUSY day… and all went well in the studio this afternoon.
All pitchers stamped, trimmed & handles attached. Under plastic for the night,
as I still want to add a layer of colored flashing slip accents on them all tomorrow!

Freshly thrown, just off the wheel… a batch of pitchers-to-be!
Tomorrow they’ll be stamped… and if all goes well, trimmed & handled too?!!!
Fingers crossed.

Now that all of the berry bowls are stamped, trimmed and drilled with holes…
now they need drip plates to catch the water after washing your berries!
Here we go… giddy-up!

But they still need to be fired & glazed before adding BERRIES!!!

A bowl is just a bowl… until it gets HOLES.. . and becomes a Berry Bowl.
So I start with my MKM Decorating Disk to help divide the spacing evenly.
I stick my needle tool through the holes on the disk to mark the bottom of the bowl.

And then I pull out the POWER TOOLS!!!
A power drill makes the holes so much faster & cleaner than trying to punch them out by hand. And having a few different sizes of drill bits on hand helps with the design.

Plus… I’m hoping that the clay shrinkage will help close up those big holes…
don’t want to lose any blueberries!

And then after drilling all of the holes, there’s a just a little bot of clean-up om the inside.
These little burrs are very easy to wipe off with my fingers…
but look how clean those holes are!!!

And then

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Lotsa bowls… LOTSA trimming!!!
Good thing I love trimming… almost as much as I love stamping!

You know how I love making mugs… but I figure Spring has got to get here
at some point, so I better be ready with some Berry Bowls! So I threw my first batch…
of something “other than” mugs!!! Ha!!!

Wedged balls of clay… filled with potential… oh, what to make???
Ummm… something other than mugs maybe???