I had a wonderful kiln unloading tonight.

Always a fun treasure hunt finding new beauties as you unload layer by layer, shelf by shelf.

It might have been my quickest unloading yet?!… including all of the glamorous tasks that no one really thinks about. Packing into crates. Scraping shelves. Organizing bricks. Kiln washing shelves. Cleaning the firebox. Sweeping the floor. Taking out the garbage. Packing my car. Shlepping everything up three flights of stairs to my condo. You know, all that fun stuff. At least I have some beautiful pots to show for it… all getting ready for THIS weekend’s big sale!!!

My pottery is still on display at City Olive in Andersonville.
Last weekend was the Arts & Design Weekend, but you still have time to snatch up some Fire When Ready Pottery this weekend too! Stop by at 5644 North Clark Street in Chicago.

Start your day at City Olive this morning with Stu’s Bloody Marys from 11:00am-1:00pm for the Andersonville Arts & Design Weekend. I’m sure your Bloody Mary will taste even better if you drink it from one of my handmade mugs!!! Then stick around from 12:00pm-2:00pm for some sweets from Pear Tree Preserves. Plenty of my pottery to compliment the wonderful oils & food treats at City Olive.

Stop by tonight for the kick-off of Andersonville’s Arts & Design Weekend.
A little “after hours” fun at City Olive where they will be featuring my pottery for this special weekend!!! The festivities continue until 9:00pm tonight… and continue Saturday & Sunday.

This weekend is the Andersonville Arts & Design Weekend. And I have been invited to be the Guest Artist for the weekend at City Olive. The festivities begin tomorrow… so I went in tonight to deliver my pottery and set-up. It’s a fun collaboration & mixture of fine olive oils & fancy foods alongside of my pottery.

Andersonville Arts and Design Weekend at City Olive
5644 North Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois 60660

Friday, October 10th, 2014 – 11:00am-9:00pm
Saturday, October 11th, 2014 – 11:00am-5:00pm
Sunday, October 12th, 2014 – 12:00pm-5:00pm

Karen has a beautiful store full of wonderfully edible & foodie-favorite surprises. For this special weekend, there is now a wide selection of pottery to choose from as well. All completely usable… food-safe, dishwasher-safe, microwave-safe, etc. So be sure to stop by City Olive for some fun this weekend. And to grab yourself some of my pottery – especially if you couldn’t make it out to any of my Summer Art Fairs!

Here’s a quick preview of some of the pottery “up for grabs” at City Olive this weekend…

I hope you can make it in this weekend. If you do, be sure to say “Hi” to Karen for me…
and tell her that your heard about it from my blog. Thanks.

Let the pricing & packing commence. Lots of pots. Lots of mugs!!!

Last night I unloaded my soda kiln. After a full day of firing and a full day of cooling, you’re always a little anxious to unbrick the door and get your first peek of what’s inside. The front of the kiln is always “pounded” with a bit more soda… and there fore a bit more “gray.” But the backsides of those pots on the edge are usually pretty sweet, with great contrast to the soda blast zone. Here’s the front stack of the kiln…

And then the back stack of the kiln…
looks like pretty good coverage throughout. No dry spots that I can see so far.

Yep, everything turned out pretty well. A good coverage of soda on the pots.
A lot of nice flashing. Some sweet glaze effects.

A LOT of mugs… you know they’re my favorite thing to make!!!

A couple new sets of salt & pepper shakers…

And some new tiles, in a few new sizes…

It’s always nice when you get a phone call the day after an art fair…
from a customer who purchased work during the fair, but resisted from buying everything she wanted. But then found she couldn’t quite get it out of her head. And she thought about it all day long.

Today was one of those days when Louise called me and asked if I still had any Double Spice Pots left and could she still buy one?! Luckily, I did have three for her to choose from. So we met up at my studio and now she’s the proud owner of the piece “that almost got away.” Thanks Louise for having me stuck in your head. Glad I could be there for ya’!!!

Here’s a nice Facebook posting from another wonderful customer…
“My Costco flowers feel like a million bucks in your vase!”
Thanks for sharing Mary Pat.