too many things

Life Stuff

Too many things to do right now; some of the main new things:

1. Try get in-person quotes for air con installation
2. Mulch some of the last new plants that I've moved outside
3. Preserve the many courgettes/marrows I've grown
4. Always laundry

It's a Monday, so O is at nursery for 3 hours while I'm not working (back to 5 days a week in September though). The bulk of my free time is taken by household chores and things I feel I should do before I try to prioritise my creative hobbies.

The Creative Pursuits

I have been able to get to the clay studio about once per week, but this week it's closed on the days I can go due to the UK summer holidays starting. At home, I haven't had much headspace or good chunks of time available to get onto the pottery wheel yet; it'll happen at some point.

Part of my journey towards making a sports direct size mug.

Drawing-wise, lately it's been a bit busy so I have just been doing sketches here and there. I did crack out the watercolours for about 10 minutes while O was out before she exploded back into the house and then tried to use all of the watercolours, mixing all kinds of colours into the paint pans - those will need a clean soon. I do want to get back into it though, I also unearthed a lovely fluorescent pink acrylic paint pot that would be fun to include in paintings.

With textiles I've been slogging away when I can at my dad's cardigan, it's maybe over halfway through now. Just a load of body knitting in stockinette, flat, to get through. And then the button band. And then freedom.

My Kosekofte (mentioned previously), a colourwork Norwegian style coatigan, is underway, but not high on my list of priorities right now.

The Shop Forays

I'm also wanting to restart my shop but I'm having a real whale of a time dealing with Etsy and the fact that they won't allow me to change my payment bank account details; I'm having to delete my account and sign up again; except the account is just scheduled for deletion at some point with no indication of when this will occur. And Etsy won't expedite it. So we're in limbo for a while...

Currently Reading

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time Series)

Finished The Stand (by Stephen King) recently, enjoyed it a lot, looking forward to getting back to The Dark Tower series - I'm up to Wolves of the Calla - but taking a little detour to continue on the Wheel of Time series. Otherwise, I'll forget the storyline if I leave too long a gap. I may also pick up a shorter book as well, once The Great Hunt is finished... I have a lot of unread books on my shelf that I should attend to before buying more 2nd hand books.

mid July developments

 Recent developments / 最近のニュース

Why am I writing like this? I don't know, I study Japanese and I felt like remembering some vocabulary 😌 If anyone out there has any corrections or suggestions (i.e. if I haven't translated something properly) please let me know!

🍯 Pottery / 陶芸

• C was very kind and gifted me a Kiln Crafts Daisy pottery wheel!
• The past couple weeks have been fairly infrequent sessions of getting to know the wheel and how best to work with it.
• I continue to go to the local clay studio and have some mugs to pick up soon, hopefully...
• And on Saturday I'm hanging out and crafting with some other local pottery friends 😌

Pot WIPs

🏠 Decluttering / 断捨離

• I have made some more efforts on the decluttering front by selling a few more things on eBay. Not a lot of cash from that, but a little bit, and some % of charity donation as well. I have more to add but it's all like niche stuff that isn't particularly valuable.
• I've been working through my yarn/fibre stash as well, my dad's cardigan now has two finished sleeves and I'm working on the body portion now. It's not using up tons of yarn but it's making a dent.
• I've started work on my maybe magnum opus, a Kosekofte (designed by Skeindeer), and it's nice to see the little balls of yarn (the main colour is in 50g balls, and contrast colours are stash yarn of varying amounts) get used up.
• I gave away some art supplies and portfolio folders to a local school.
• My next section may tackle the large amount of bits of old art in my office.

Spinning up my fibre stash; to be fair this wasn't stash, I actually just bought this when I bought some orange yarn to knit our friends' kid a tea cosy. But it's spun up now, anyway, and can be made into socks at some point!

👩🏼‍💼Business / 事業

• I don't know how much I've written about it here, but I have always wanted my own little shop (online, mostly). Now and again in life I have tried, having a fairly good go at it around 2019-2020, but I've not really stuck with it. Since finally moving home in 2025 I have wanted to try again but have hesitated due to not feeling ready, being indecisive about platforms, etc.
• I've decided I'll just start, ASAP. Probably back with Etsy to start with, even though really they're not very kind to their sellers in my opinion.
• First off I'll put up my old art and stickers I've made before. I know this doesn't sound terribly appealing in terms of branding, "buy my old stuff so I can buy more supplies!" But I hope someone can find something they like; I think my older artwork is actually more polished and finished than my current work 🫠 I'll be selling older work much cheaper as well.
• I'll link it when I do the thing!

📚 Current book / 読んでいる本

The Stand by Stephen King

throwing class week 3 🎡

 

Not got anything smart to say here, except we trimmed pots! Now the pots are slightly more dry we removed some of the excess clay from the bottoms to make the pots more neat, balanced and lighter weight-wise.

Some of mine are still hefty, like the centre front pot which is like a paperweight! But that should be fine if it has enough time to dry out. These will be dried then biscuit fired before I get to play with some surface decoration.

I'm happy with how they look and am looking forward to glazing, seeing how they turn out and then of course giving them away to friends as various birthday and possibly Christmas presents. Perhaps I'll keep one or two 🤔

throwing class #2 🎡

 I'm back on a 6 week throwing course at the studio! 

My first discovery on the course was that I think I had forgotten I'm meant to have the pottery wheel turning anti clockwise, and that could probably explain why my attempts haven't been going super well at home.

So my attempts at centering last night went better. And it appears that when I'm centering I often get a bit of clay right at the bottom (closest to the wheelhead surface) that doesn't get centred (cause it's just a tiny bit under my hands that's not going to be thrown). And then this wobble coming from the bottom makes me skeptical about whether my actual throwing clay is centred or not. So I need to be conscious of this and maybe remove some of the extra gumpf at the bottom of the wheel after initially trying to centre.

Anyway, here's 3 pots I started. I made a 4th but it died 🥺

The first one I had fun with making a different shape, and then also messed up picking it up off the wheel.

A general cylindrical shape.

I messed up the top on this one so I decided to see what would happen if I kept constricting it further and further, and I managed to close it off - it's a bit wonky though! Also I have no idea how much water is trapped inside, so I will try to drain it next week.

clay updates 🔥🥣

I've taken a break from throwing practice on the wheel - last time I went to the clay studio I worked on some slab building and coil pots...

I started working on a dosing cup as requested by Charlie. I rolled a slab of clay and cut out a circle from the base, and then used the offcuts from the slab to form some of the walls. After that I used coils (clay sausages) to build up the rest of the walls. I'm not sure if this is Forbidden behaviour in pottery or perhaps Inadvisable, but we will find out when I revisit the pot and see how it's been drying... It's a little lumpy and bumpy and textured, but that's ok. I've decided that I make Cursed Pots and this one is called Affront to God (below).

This pot below is a pinch pot, after a few pinch pot bowls I think I got a better handle on it - not great, but not 'beginner from absolute zero'. I also trimmed the top (poorly) to try and make it a bit more regular shaped. 

Lastly here's a work in progress. This one is a Proper Coil Pot, well - at least, I didn't secretly use leftover slabs for this one! Just lots and lots of sausages. I think I'm getting more used to rolling out clay sausages... I think I'm making them a bit too thin, and the walls of this coil pot are thin... we will see how they hold out!

What else can I say - when I learned to make a coil pot for the very first time (at least as far as I remember), I just rolled sausages and smooshed them together, smoothing and smearing the inside (then outside) of the pot in a downward motion. I don't think I did any scoring (and addition of slip for adhesion) to the bottom edge of the sausage and the surface it was being applied to - I don't know if I'm meant to or not? I saw someone else doing this, but then again in my clay book it isn't mentioned at all. So I'm just going to call this an experiment as well, and see whether we have any cracks or breakages lately.

Anyway, those are my three ongoing pots. I have a couple heading to the kiln at some point, one very cursed circular tray thing (small, misshapen, somewhat embarrassing sitting next to the other makers' pots on the drying area) and a simple pinch pot (inoffensive, will make a good surface for trying out fun decorations). Looking forward to playing with surface design when they're ready!

General Other Updates

• I've been drawing at least 5 minutes every night - this is a big deal for me, trying to just get a daily practice in that I can build on later. I want to be able to paint and such again. Or do I want to want to paint but don't actually want to do it? We will find out.
• I've been spinning yarn so much lately; I have at least 2 sheep fleeces (one now partially spun up) to get through. I want to get to a place where I only have 1 outstanding spinning project or so, rather than at least 2 giant spinning projects. Fleeces take me like over a year!

First trimming on the 2nd hand wheel (bit of a fail)

 So - I tried trimming/turning on my wheel the other day and it was kinda a fail - but still a good learning experience. After throwing the pots I left them out for a couple days; but because it's summer I think they dried too much, which made trimming them later on the wheel quite difficult - maybe it was impossible  to do a good job, because they were too dry?

I still don't hate it though so I don't consider this a complete failure! And of course it was a learning experience in terms of how long to leave pots out in summer and how it makes trimming feel.

In one of them I assume the dryness/hardness is what caused this funky effects below.

What also probably didn't help was that my centering probably wasn't perfect either. Oh well! Better luck next time.

---> There was a next time, by the way. I made 3 pots at the clay studio one day and then when I realised I wouldn't get back to the studio in time to trim them due to the summer weather, I went and picked up the 3 pots. And then dropped the bag on the way home, resulting in 3 manky dented pots. 1 of them got carved into to make a faceted pot and the other two I attempted to trim, and failed, and promptly smooshed them, ripped them up and stuck them in the reclaim bucket!

I'll try and add a picture of the faceted pot later on in another post. Now I have 3 pots just taking their time, drying away, while I figure out how to fire them at home - possibly in an incinerator bin or chiminea.

Testing out my cheap 2nd hand wheel 🛞

 

I had today off from work and a couple of hours to spend before an appointment, so I set up the 2nd hand wheel that I had bought online. It's a generic model, I don't think it has a specific brand or manufacturer, but it's easy to find if you search pottery wheel on various popular websites. I've seen this wheel sold new from anything between £100-150, but I got it 2nd hand for £80 including postage. I thought it's a fair deal for figuring out whether pottery at home is feasible, for me, a newly obsessed person with a tendency to forget about hobbies after a while.

General Points

• The wheelhead is noticeably small when throwing, 25cm in diameter or so, but I think it will be big enough for me to create small items like mugs, bowls, small plates, etc.
• The splash pan is easy to remove and reattach after cleaning.
• The speed control is not perfect but it's enough for me to have fast, medium, and slow speeds for each stage of throwing.
• The height is low, many people have said this for these cheap wheels. I think it's less of a problem for me as I am small, but I am still crouching like a gremlin. I think it'll take some time to get used to the needed posture here.
• I'm using a cheap foldable stool/step that I had in the kitchen to sit on.

Experience

Now I'm a beginner and will continue to be so for a while - so take my thoughts with a pinch of salt. I think this wheel will be sufficient for me while I'm still in the beginner and earlier intermediate stages. 

When centering, right at the beginning, I found the clay got a bit all over the place; more so than my experiences at the pottery studio (I think they have Shimpos and one other fancy wheel). But after the initial chaos everything worked as expected.

I'm going to admit; this session I only threw 2 pots, and I bet I had some slight off centre bits in my clay because I was impatient and very aware of the impending appointment I mentioned. I will give it all another go at some point soon and if there's anything new to report I will add it in!

In Other News

I finished my previous book, Butter by Asako Yuzuki, and started The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon Somin. It's... as it looks and sounds, another in the cosy East Asian fiction genre that popped up over the past few years. I'm enjoying it a lot, I'm sure a big part of it is that it mirrors in some ways my own introduction to ceramics; but it is just a nice and chilled out read. I may even check out the author's other books or some other ones within the genre.

Hobbies & climate change

 Hey so-

A bit of background info before my big blog post - I'm an artist working in games, and I have a lot of craft related hobbies such as knitting, spinning yarn, ceramics, etc.

This isn't something I expect that the majority of people think about - although hopefully I'm wrong - but I've just been considering the impact of my hobbies and lifestyle on the environment.

It's all felt a bit climate-changey lately (along with the general shite feeling with the whole genocide being live streamed on social media) in the UK - summer is the gift that keeps giving with various mini and normal sized heatwaves/droughts since, what was it, May or possibly even April?

By the way, you can email your MP about what's happening in Palestine via this website.

As an aside, I can't wait for autumnal temperatures 🍁 🍂 

So anyway, I start thinking about my individual actions and things that I could do to help; yes, I know that one private jet flight would basically nullify a lifetime of me avoiding buying plastic bottles, but I still want to do what I can because it feels right to me.

A little disclaimer, these are just my personal thoughts/opinions, this is not a researched piece! If you have any relevant information you'd like to share on this or even just your own thoughts on your hobbies/practices then I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

Starting the studio membership

 

It's August! This means that I can start my membership at the local clay studio. I get about the equivalent of 1 x 3hr session a week (but can squish together 2 sessions to make a full day or do 2+ sessions in a week then less on other weeks).

Today I took work off so I did a morning at the studio. I wasn't sure yet what I wanted to do as I'm a bit unsure if I would make it in time to another session to trim/work into whatever I made this session. In the end I decided to do some wheel throwing practice. I'm honestly not good at any part of the process and wanted at least to focus on practicing centering.

So I got 3 wonky ish pots made, which took a long time for me - but they were a good learning experience. I hope I'll be able to make it to the studio soon to trim the pots before they get too dry. If not, they'll end up in the studio's reclaim bucket 🥲 we will see how it goes!

2 of the 3 wonky pots:

The third one, thrown after these 2, was actually not so bad; yet I didn't photograph it for some reason or another. It'll make an appearance if I make it in time for trimming, etc.

Oop

 Oups -

I spat in the face of my previous blog -

And, when payday rolled around, I picked up a few bits from my clay wishlist;

I got:

• Clay - cheap, grogged terracotta
• 1 large sponge for cleaning
• 1 cutting wire
• 1 large bucket for reclaim
• 1 wooden rib
• 1 metal flexible kidney rib

Not only that, though! While I can happily report that I did not shop at amazon for a cheap wheel or buy one off Vevor (for a start it looks like their pottery wheels don't deliver to the UK as I had to view the item on the Irish store), I did discover a 2nd hand cheap amazon-esque wheel on eBay for £80 - so that happened.

A couple of fellow clay studio folks were talking about the beginner wheels they'd acquired, and another had one of these cheaper wheels; and another had shared a video of a ceramicist reviewing one - as sufficient enough for a newbie - so I felt fairly safe in my punt.

It's arrived and appears to be working so I will give it a go. If it's awful, at least I haven't bought it new for upwards of £150, and if it satisfies someone else's needs then I can pass it along.

The next steps for me include trying to find a window of time to figure out a working setup in the conservatory, outdoors, or the summer house. I don't really have a suitable place to wedge at the moment, if needed. I know there's a big piece of wood I had knocking about somewhere pre-moving house, so if I can find that, I can use it on the floor and kneel down for the time being. We'll see!

Updates to follow, and I suppose you can see some of my janky pots I made at the last class I attended.

Dreaming of doing ceramics at home

Hey all!

An episode of me convincing myself to not buy things.

I think I mentioned in my first post that I've been doing pottery lately. I got started by taking a tester session at my local pottery studio, and then did 3 short weekly courses over the past few months. Now, after finishing up on the third course, I have joined the studio as a member, starting in August. There's been a bit of time in between finishing the course and until August, so I find myself dreaming as usual about being able to do pottery at home...

I know I'm a beginner and will be for a while, and I know I shouldn't commit large amounts of money to buying expensive equipment... Anyway, it doesn't stop me planning and dreaming; I don't have to enact any of these plans!