So excited to see that part of the Driehaus Stained Glass Museum has been re-installed at Navy Pier. Select pieces now illuminate the first floor walkway as you head down towards Sable Hotel. Fingers crossed that they install even more if the collection that lived in The Pier several years ago!

Every season I “struggle” between wanting to be surprised with the THROWDOWN final projects… and wanting to help my students along the way. So this season they’re all working on full tea sets based on traditional fairy tales. And I am so excited to see these “parts & pieces” by Taylor.

Can you guess Taylor’s fairy tale theme yet???

At the end of our THROWDOWN night… my pinch-pot cup & saucer found a special landing place! Smack dab on top on one of the classroom reclaim barrels!

During our night of blindfolded fun… my LILLSTREET THROWDOWNER’s did get to take a break to enjoy another OREO favorite with their blindfolds off!!! Thanks to Becky for bringing them in!

So here are the final sets of the “matching” cups & saucers! My THROWDOWN students killed it in this 45-minute challenge. Making pinch pot teacups & saucers that matched each other.. while BOTH players were blindfolded!!! Plenty of discussion… but built “blindly” racing the time deadline. Again, since we had an odd number of players, I had to step-in to play along!

In the end, we called in Lillstreet handbuilding teach Nicole to be our judge not knowing who made which set… and she chose Melanie & my set as the WINNER!!! whoo-hoo!!!

For our final THROWDOWN challenge of the night, the teams of two were BOTH BLINDFOLDED and challenged to make a cup & saucer with pinch pot techniques! They each had to make a matching cup with handle & a saucer… MATCHING!!! Yes, they had to build a “matching” set while never seeing or feeling the other person’s piece. They had to discuss & analyze their pieces verbally so their partner had an idea of what they were both working on… size, scale, proportions, style, decorations, etc. With 45 minutes, they all had plenty of time to discuss & describe their pieces… and to be in the dark the whole time!

And since we had an odd number of students in class this week, I had to step-in & was partnered with Melanie who KILLED it in all three challenges!!!

This week in my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class, we did some handbuilding challenges! Mostly just “technique” challenges… but the biggest challenge was being BLINDFOLDED!!! They were divided into teams of two… one was the “Maker” and the other was the”Caller.” The Caller was the eyes of the team… giving instruction, advice & encouragement for the Maker. The Maker was the one competing to make the longest coil, or largest slab. And yes, they switched places for the two challenges so they each had a chance to play with the clay… and a chance to see how it feels to be the Teacher. As many of my THROWDOWN students have not had a lot of handbuilding experience!

Sorry, I missed photos of the coil-rolling challenge… my bad!

There’s a little something new brewing in my studio… after a night of playing with textured rollers last night. I have a loose “plan” here… we’ll see how it comes together?! Hopefully well… and in time for the “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” show the end of this month!!! Fingers crossed…

Letting things “roll” with my carved handrollers from MKM Pottery Tools!

So the new postcards are here… the dates are set… and now I gotta get my act together to make a bunch of new pieces for this special gallery show! Including another “collaboration” project with the other artists… each of the four of us making four pieces each to come together at the show!!!

4×4… make sense now?