early July things

 

I started making mugs! I get closer to my goal of making a giant sports direct dupe mug. My next steps are just continuing to throw mugs, practicing throwing with bigger pieces of clay and learning to make a variety of handle styles, so I can reach the Giant Mug goal. I also eventually want to practice doing more underglazing (basically painting underneath a translucent/transparent glaze, like this black design shown on the mug image above) and on-glaze decorating techniques (painting on top of a glaze, not done it before).

Here's a less successful but still interesting pot. It's not so successful because the wax resist somehow got on the upper area of the pot (the light line near the rim). Also there's some glaze mess on the inside of the pot, because I messed up the glaze application initially and then roughly cleaned it before re applying a different glaze; there was still some residue of the first glaze and instead of combining, somehow the two glazes didn't get along so there's a big unglazed spot on the inside... 

However! I actually find the new glaze itself very interesting colour and texture wise, I'm not usually into blues but this one has a lot of variation within it, so I'll probably try do some more pots with this glaze. I'll see how the next result comes out, I wonder if some of the variation is coming from my haphazard prior glaze dipping and subsequent messy cleaning.

---

I have a few more pots that came out of the kiln, none are particularly noteworthy to be honest. I am getting better at throwing bigger, taller things, though. I have put 4 new mugs up for their first kiln firing, so I'm looking forward to see how they get on (fingers crossed the handles stay on).

---

In craft news

• I'm continuing to use and destash my yarn!
• I sold/traded a couple jumper weights of handspun yarn that I'd made because I didn't have solid plans on what to make with them, and I have enough works in progress/queued specific projects to get on with.
• I'm working on my dad's cardigan and making good progress. It looks like I'll still have a whole other jumper quantity of yarn even after finishing it though! So I might make myself a cardigan or sell/trade the remainder.
• I did buy a jumper quantity of pale coloured Sandnes Garn peer gynt yarn for a Kosekofte which has been a knitting goal for quite some time. For the colourwork contrast colours I will be using a bunch of handspun and leftover yarn, so it still sort of feels like a win in terms of stash.
• I suppose if there's leftover then I can use the rest for some mittens or other small accessories, or sell the peer gynt yarn.

In game dev/art news

• Continuing to try learn to code and doing a bit of shader and in-engine (Unity) learning at work too. Hit a wall with one of my tutorials so I need to ask someone about that soon.
• Continuing slowly but surely with the dress up pixel artwork.
• Done some watercolour painting recently as well as some general sketchbook drawing which has been fun 😌

early june update 🎡

 

A bowl which I'll trim on Thursday

Some biscuit fired pots - to be glazed

Swiss Darning C's workhorse jumper

June Things

• I actually started learning to code
• It's slooooow but that's understandable. It's a different way of thinking
• I'm doing this so I can make basic prototypes for my ideas
• Namely the dress up game...
• I have been reorganising my office
• Finally going through all my high school and uni art and recycling or putting it away
• Used some sheep fleece from my spinning stash for mulching my courgettes as the fleece, while lovely, was so spiky as the sheep appears to have rolled in thorns. So the prepping and spinning experience was horrible!
• Continuing to attempt to stash down (reduce my knitting stash) to mixed results
• I had a 'commission'/request for a bright orange tea cosy for a friend, so I bought yarn for that - now I have leftover orange yarn! I think I will combine it with other leftovers to make O a scarf for autumn
• I almost finished a triangular shawl for myself but had to order a 20g mini skein to finish it up. I think I'll have leftover from that (when it arrives) so it'll go into O's scarf, too. It's all DK
• I may have also ordered a mystery box of 5 x 20g DK mini skeins which will also be part of O's scarf
• I have been working on my dad's cardigan again so it'll be nice to use up some of the yarn I have lounging around my office for that!
• I have made progress on some socks for C that I've been on for months... still more to go but it's getting there. There will be leftover yarn but I also have some scrappy sock WIP that I can put it into and any remainder can be for darning/repairs!

May Photos 📸🌼

 

Courgette plants

 

Garlic pizza bread

Roses from the garden

Dyeing orange yarn

Hand dyed handspun yarn

Bee on a poppy

Throwing pots

a year of make do 🧵

Ok I get inspired by Leena Norms lately...

May 2026 - May 2027

No new clothing items (this includes second hand purchases).

Except for some of the below examples:

• I can replace essentials (underwear and maybe socks).
• If 2-3 non essentials wear out fully then I can consider getting something, e.g. a second hand top or I will allow myself to peruse independent people like Sin Eater.
• If I'm working through my yarn stash and need to buy some yarn to complete a project then I will allow it...
• For example, I have all the contrast yarn queued up for a kofte knitting project but would need to buy the main colour yarn 🧶 
• If I need to buy a dress for the upcoming August wedding I'm attending, I will - this is if there's a specific dress code that my available clothes don't fit into.
• I'll think about buying secondhand or explore renting first of all!
• If I run out of sewing project fabric (highly unlikely) I can consider buying some fabric for a specific project.

And for the hell of it let's try this (with less strenuous rules)...

Low Buy on Books

• I have to read 2 books from my TBR [to be read] pile before I can buy 1 new book.
• On top of this, as I get through my TBR pile, I have to decide if I want to keep it or not, and sell or give away if not.
• I'm also going through my bookshelves in general at the moment and selling books here and there... mostly they're:
• Books I didn't enjoy
• Books I highly doubt I'll read again
• My goal is to lightly reduce the amount of books I own because I want to make room in my shelves for books like - Wheel of Time series, Brandon Sanderson, Dark Tower series

It's May 💮🌸🌼🌻

 Quick check in this May!

Currently Reading: Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson (finally over halfway)
Other Enjoyment: Watching Leena Norms on youtube.

I am overwhelmed with my ongoing textile projects:

1. Jumper for C (90% done)
2. Cardigan for dad (15% done)
3. 200g DK yarn shawl for me (20% done)
4. Draught excluder to be stuffed with non-compostable scraps and clothing waste (1% done)
5. Spinning up a sheep fleece from ~2021-2022 (??% done, working on it bit by bit)

Languishing projects:

1. A dress which just needs a neckline adjustment and bias binding
2. Some trousers needing a new waistband

Projects I want to start:

1. Sewing the pomona pants in some checked or patterned fabric (basically I want some Mabel trousers from Beyond Nine but they are out of my budget and also probably a bit wider than I'd like, anyway
2. Sewing another Rae skirt - a very beginner friendly pattern, I sewed one in checked linen and it's had a lot of mileage

Some pottery progress:

I'm finally able to make cylinders large enough to be [hopefully] decent sized mugs. My dream pottery project is a sports direct sized mug... one day. 

One of the good things about pottery is the pots live at the clay studio, and each item is fairly small as a project, so they don't feel overwhelming like the textiles projects I listed above!

Art Progress

I've done sketching here and there, and I've made progress on that dress up game prototype I mentioned previously; mostly just making the base body image onto which clothes will be added. I also made a start on some clothing as well 😌 And on top of that I started on the Unity junior programmer tutorials.

Late April / High Spring

Currently Reading: Vicious by V E Schwab
Currently Playing: Slay the Princess (Switch)

---

Art

Art and sketching has been happening! Do I have anything to show for it? Not really, all kinda scribbles and suchlike. But it's continuing so that's good enough for me. I need to make a plan, really and connect it with the next section which is:

---

Game Dev

I mentioned previously that I wanted to make a dollmaker/dress up game prototype as my first Thing. And I did get started on it! I then hit a point where I actually need to do code to continue. So realistically what I need to do is one or both of these things:

1. Do some coding tutorials
2. Find a very specific tutorial on how to make a dress up game in Unity or another engine of my choosing

We have finally sorted out my 'goals for the year' at work and I linked them up to this project so I hope I'll be able to set some time aside for working on this. Actually I'll make a point of requesting days tomorrow so the ball keeps rolling.

I'm often struggling lately with how to keep improving my skills with the somewhat limited time/energy levels available. I know I can push through and try to do more in the evenings when O is asleep, but it's not necessarily sustainable long term and I do want to also be able to enjoy reading books.

---

Textiles

I had pre-ordered 200g of some merino DK yarn recently as a treat and it finally arrived so I eagerly started work on a simple shawl (not using the Sophie Shawl pattern... but basically that pattern if you want to look), and it's been okay except for me needing to rip back and reknit about five times because I increased on the wrong side (obviously was counting incorrectly) and then couldn't get the i-cord edge to look right on subsequent attempts.

I'm still working on a jumper for C (almost done, but needed lengthening) and a cardigan for my dad (only just split for the sleeves and have to knit downwards for the body). 

I'm also gradually spinning through my sheep fleece stash, one little bit at a time. This fleece I'm working on is really spiky as the sheep seems to have spent time around some brambles... it's quite unpleasant to process but I'm not ready to give up yet. If I can spin it all up I'll maybe dye it and knit C another jumper.

---

That's all, just a quick check in from me!

April check in 💮

Currently Reading: The Eye of The World (Robert E Jordan)

---

I got sick in March and the plan fell by the wayside a little - I'm not going to feel guilty about that since I need rest time too...

But I have been more consistently drawing since getting better!

---

Pottery has been less consistent due to being unwell (I don't want to make other pottery folk sick) and plans changing/childcare needs increasing... but that's ok, I'll get back to it when I can. I do have a few things that have probably gone into the kiln for a glaze firing, so I look forward to seeing what they look like when I next get to the studio.

---

Knitting wise, I finished a big handspun jumper project - from sheep fleece to yarn to jumper - and I didn't like how it looked on me! I was very sad. And then I gave it to my mum for her birthday and she seemed happy with it...

I liked the yarn I made but hated the fit of the jumper (too big) - I had already tried about 3 times to make different projects with the yarn and had had enough of it.

I have a cardigan WIP and a jumper WIP, for my dad and C respectively, and they're not particularly exciting to me, but the cardigan is at least using stash yarn and I'm trying to work on using what I have so that's good. After these 2 projects I do have one more gift knit I want to do, another jumper for C - but in a fatter yarn, so hopefully it'll be a little speedier to complete. And then I want to make clothes for myself again!

I would knit for O but she doesn't like to wear jumpers anyway.

---

Today is a Monday, so I have a couple hours to get some things done if I want. I'm keeping it low pressure though because there was a lot on during the weekend.