Christmas Stock: New Ceramic Bells and Star Tea-light holders.

New Star Cut Out Tea-light Holders

Christmas is officially back on track! In my last post I mentioned I was having kiln issues. Thankfully these were resolved after fitting a brand new isolation switch. The new one is more robust than the last one - which burnt itself out. Hopefully the new one should do a much better job and last longer too.

I was very lucky that nothing else seemed to be wrong with the kiln. I ran a small test firing to check the controller and thermocouple were behaving themselves by programming in a simple ramp of 30 minutes to about 30 degrees. All seemed well. So I spent a week glazing all my pots ready to fire two separate glaze firings.

Un-packing Glaze Fire 

After packing one of these kilns, all I could do was cross my fingers, turn on the switch and hope it all worked! Luckily it did. In fact I had two perfect glaze firings - one of which you can see in the composite above. Some of these pots have already gone out to galleries or for orders. But the rest are available in my Folksy and Etsy shops.

Ceramic Christmas Bells

So now I have a new batch of ceramic hand bells in stock. They come in two glaze options: plain white, and blue and white. And I also have a new version of my tea-light holders with a star shaped cut out. I think they work really well - and I wonder now why I didn't think of making them years ago!

Christmassy Star Tea-light Holders

Events News:

I'm going to be exhibiting at Quarr Abbey again this year for six days beginning next Thursday. So if you're on the island please do pop in. Here's a listing with all the details.

Thanks for reading!

Christmas Tea-light Holders

On the last day of November we had a lovely frosty morning. So I popped into the garden quick with my camera to try to get some festive photos.

These Christmas tea-light holders with stars are made with speckled stoneware clay. On the handle they feature handmade beads made from porcelain and black clay. And to give them a seasonal touch, some gorgeous red glass beads, which are handmade too by my friend Anna Hayward.

Tea-light holders are not always easy to photograph. It's tricky to get them to look as cosy and magical as they are in real life whilst still trying to keep them in focus. Here's my attempt to show how cosy they can are in the dark too - they cast nice little stars on their surroundings.

Anyway, they're vailable in my Folksy Shop here! Merry Crimbles!

New Home, New Studio - and Christmas Crafts at Quarr again...

Handmade Stoneware Cottages

In case anyone was wondering where I've been for the past six months, I've moved house! In my books, that's a really good excuse for not posting on my blog since April. They say, (whoever 'they' are) that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. And I agree. But I'd have to say that moving house AND moving pottery studio adds a little cherry on top of the proceedings...

But we're here now. And all is well. In fact all is very well indeed. We're absolutely thrilled, tickled pink and chuffed to be in our new home - and we're settling in nicely.

As for pots. Well, I've got a brand new studio space. But it's in such a mess at the moment I can't possibly show any photos. It's full of unpacked boxes, bubblewrap, tubs of glaze and general studio equipment all piled on top of each other. And the kiln is packed away and unplugged and currently out of use until further notice. So there's plenty to do and it's very exciting times.

In the meantime, I thought I'd say hello and touch base as they say. Mostly to say yes, I am still here! But also to say it's that time again...

I'm exhibiting at Quarr Abbey for our annual Christmas Crafts show. So if you're on the Isle of Wight pop along if you can - click on the photo below for exhibition details.

Bye for now!

Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey - 2015

A medley of work available at the show

The kiln is working overtime at the moment making orders and getting ready for Christmas shows. I have two more glaze firings left and then I'll be ready for my next event which is a joint show at Quarr Abbey.

I'm exhibiting with four other local artists and craft makers from the Isle of Wight. On display will be a range of different disciplines including woodturning, textiles, acrylic painting as well as lots pots of course. So if you're in the area, hope to see you there!

Thursday 19th November - Tuesday 24th November 2015

Open Daily 10.30am - 4.40pm

Quarr Abbey Gallery, Ryde, Isle of Wight, PO33 4ES

Free Admission

Exhibitors:

Jude Allman is a potter who makes hand thrown stoneware vases, bowls, jugs and homeware accessories decorated using simple glaze combinations in a modern rustic style.

Peter Wright of Wright Turned makes natural lathe turned wooden platters, bowls, cups and garden dibbers using wood from native Ash, Oak and Beech trees.

LisToft is a maker of intricately decorated porcelain vessels and jewellery with bronze and turquoise flowing glazes.

SueWright Handknits is a hand knitter, weaver and spinner who designs unique clothing and homeware accessories including scarves, socks, bags, rugs and runners in soft practical yarns.

Tim England is inspired by fragmented shadow and light, and combines abstract and figurative aspects in both his paintings and ceramics.

Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey 2014

Next week I will be exhibiting in a group show called Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey with four other art and craft makers from the Isle of Wight. This will be our fifth Christmas show at the Abbey - our first was back in 2010 (which you can read about here) - so it's become something of an annual event for us!

This year we're joined by Peter Wright of Wright Turned who makes beautiful handmade wooden pieces on a lathe - some of which you can see in the image at the top of this post. It's always good to have a range of different craft disciplines to give people choice and variety in a show. This year I think we have a lovely mix of materials that complement each other well and have a wide appeal - ceramics, textiles and wood. So we're looking forward to it.

Here's the details of our show if you happen to be passing...!

Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey 2014

Thursday 20^th November – Tuesday 25^th November 2014

Open Daily 10.30am – 4.30pm

Quarr Abbey Gallery, Ryde, Isle of Wight, PO33 4ES

Free Admission

Exhibitors:

Jude Allman is a potter who makes hand thrown stoneware vases, bowls, jugs and homeware accessories decorated using simple glaze combinations in a modern rustic style.

Peter Wright of Wright Turned makes natural lathe turned wooden platters, bowls, cups and garden dibbers using wood from native Ash, Oak and Beech trees.

Lis Toft is a maker of intricately decorated porcelain vessels and jewellery with bronze and turquoise flowing glazes.

Sue Wright Handknits is a hand knitter, weaver and spinner who designs unique clothing and homeware accessories including scarves, socks, bags, rugs and runners in soft practical yarns.

Tim England is inspired by fragmented shadow and light, and combines abstract and figurative aspects in both his paintings and ceramics.

Christmas Bells and Chimes

For this Christmas season I wanted to try some new decoration ideas. Coming up with ideas that feel new and fresh isn't always easy. Sometimes it can feel like everything's been done before - and it's tempting to just dust off the remainder of last year's stock and hope no one will notice! So to look for inspiration I thought back to more traditional Christmas themes - and struck upon the idea of bells.

Bells used to feature much more in Christmas decorations than they do these days - or at least so it seems. Along with candles, yule logs and ivy. But rather than just make some decorations in the shape of a bell, I decided to make the actual bells themselves. 

Each bell is hand-thrown 'upside-down' just like a small deep bowl. Then the 'bases' are turned and rounded off to form the top of the bell cup. I decided to add small hook handles on each of the bells. This gives them flexibility; they can either be rung by hand as handbells or hung up by a cord to chime in the breeze.

I'm very pleased with the results. Each bell is one of a kind - each slightly different in shape, glazing combinations or handle style. And of course each bell chimes differently too! I think they make lovely gifts - and the best thing about them is, that they're not just for Christmas. They're perfect for decorating the home all year round and even for the garden in Summer too.

Available now in my Folksy Shop and Etsy Shop. 

Lists and End of Year Review...

At the beginning of 2012 I made a list of things I wanted to do. These included new designs I wanted to make and equipment I wanted to add to the studio. And for once I’ve actually managed to cross off all the items on the list! This is unheard of: usually at the end of the year I have to transfer half the items from the unfinished ‘to do’ list over onto the following year. So 2012 has been a very productive year for me!

Two major items on the list this year were a) fix the studio roof and b) install a kiln. Both took much longer than expected and proved very disruptive: but ultimately worth it in the end. My studio has been transformed and it’s made such a difference to how I work. As for the kiln: well I’ve only just squeezed that into the last closing minutes of the year. It was finally plugged into the electrics last week and switched on. As far as I know it’s ready to go (all the lights are working and nothing exploded thankfully) but I still need to do a ‘first firing’…

Of course once you cross off one thing on the list, new things spring up in its place. So here’s my current mini sub-list for the last few remaining days of the year:

1)   Read the manual for the kiln controller (not as easy as it sounds).

2)   Program the controller for a ‘first firing’ (still not as easy as it sounds).

3)   Load the kiln with furniture only (ie; shelves and supports, no ware) leaving bungs out to ‘first fire’ the kiln. (This is done to oxidise the brand new kiln interior and also to dry out the batts.)

4)   Cross fingers and hope it all works…

5)   Shout yippee if it does and apply batt wash to kiln shelves.

6)   In the meantime continue making pots ready for a first bisque firing (planned for sometime in January).

7)   Oh yes, and have Christmas day in there somewhere!

I’ve already started my new list for 2013. Next year I’m looking forward to getting to grips with firing my new kiln and developing my own range of glazes. And of course I’d like to make some new designs again too. No rest for the wicked.

Happy Holidays!

Wayzgoose Christmas Show 2011

I’ve just finished my last show of the year! Wayzgoose is an annual Christmas show held in a local art complex called Jubilee Stores based in Newport on the Isle of Wight. Every Christmas the artists-in-residence open their studios for a special two-day event. They invite about 20 artists to exhibit with them, which means there’s a wide range of different art and craft disciplines on show for people to choose from and enjoy.

This is the second year I’ve exhibited in the show (you can read last year’s post here). At first I was worried I might not have enough stock to put on my table. This is a common complaint among artist/makers in general it seems! However, luckily the kiln had been fired and was ready to open on the day of setting-up: so I had some lovely new vases to put out on my stand. In fact, they were so brand new they were still toasty and warm…

Unlike last year (when I forgot my camera) this year I remembered to take some photos. Here are just a few of them. I wanted to show off my new vases properly with a flower display, and had the idea of using a bunch of red tulips. I didn’t think I’d get tulips at this time of year, let alone red ones! But luckily my local florist had them in stock. They were perfect really because they had a red-and-green Christmas theme, but at the same time felt very fresh and cheerful. I think it must have worked because my vases did very well at the show! So overall it was an excellent weekend and a really positive way to end the year.

Christmas Open Studios

This weekend I’ve been out and about visiting a couple of Open Studio events on the island. I thought it would do me good (between my own shows) to visit other people’s. So last night I went to see my friend Sue Paraskeva’s studio in Ryde. Sue is a potter who specialises in hand-thrown porcelain tableware and one-off altered pieces. She uses a stick-driven momentum wheel for throwing, and ‘reduction’ fires all her work using a gas kiln. Last night her studio was overflowing with beautiful pots on display all around the walls and shelves.

Her work is mostly monochromatic: pure whites, lightly toned greys with the occasional pale green celadon or splash of dark oxide. This calming, harmonious colour scheme means her pots complement each other, mix and match perfectly, and look stunning together as a display. For a festive atmosphere Sue provided visitors with plenty of wine and mince pies (which I ate from one of her lovely side plates) and arranged a trail of pretty candles to guide guests along the path to the front door of her studio – a welcome glow on an otherwise cold wintery evening!

Earlier today I went on my second Open Studio visit to see my friend Anna Hayward who lives just outside of Cowes. I met Anna a few years ago on a raku workshop, but besides making ceramics, Anna specialises in making handmade glass beads and jewellery. I’m rather envious of her studio which is a lovely wooden summer house/shed in her garden. Knowing nothing about the process myself, it was fascinating to watch Anna demonstrate lampworking – which is the method she uses to make her beads – and to learn about her tools and equipment. It was very interesting too to talk about the crossover between glass bead making and ceramics – glazes being essentially made of glass of course and both disciplines using fire, minerals and kilns in their processes.

There’s also a crossover between Anna’s styles of work. Her interest in circles and spirals feeds into her designs and methods of working in both her ceramics (which are mostly hand-built coiled pots) and her beads, which feature colourful dots, snake-like lines and swirling patterns. In fact she also uses her pots to display her work, setting off her jewellery beautifully. So I had a very enjoyable afternoon admiring her skill - and choosing a couple of pieces to take home with me too!

Anyway, thanks Sue and Anna for their lovely shows!

Christmas Crafts – Forthcoming Show

Yes, it’s that time again! Just thought I’d do a quick plug for my forthcoming Christmas show at Quarr Abbey. This will be the third show I’ve had at Quarr: the first was last November and I also had my Open Studio event there this summer too. So it’s become quite a familiar venue! It’s a lovely day out for visitors with plenty to see, and since last November they’ve opened a bigger café with a farm shop that sells local produce: so plenty of coffee, cakes and food to enjoy! As usual they’ll be five of us exhibiting together in the Exhibition Room showing a selection of different crafts, including pottery, felting, hand-knitting, hand-weaving and this time a local photographer will also be joining our group. So if you’re in the area, please do pop in!

Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey

24^th – 29^th November 2011

10.30am – 4.30pm

Free Entry

After the show: Wayzgoose

Last weekend I finished my last Christmas show and my final show of the year! Wayzgoose is an annual Christmas sale at a local artists' studio complex called Jubilee Stores. The studios are based in Newport on the Isle of Wight in a converted warehouse on the town quayside of the River Medina. There were about 25 artists and craft makers exhibiting at Wayzgoose this year including painters, jewellers, ceramic makers, textile makers, basket makers, printers and much more. We all had a really good time and lots of customers came through the door: I counted about 230 people over the event (though I was often distracted so it could have been more!) But I'm really pleased with my sales too - which makes all the hard work worth while!

Of course I forgot to take my camera so all I have of the event itself is this shot below of one of the rooms taken using my very old camera phone. I confess to tweaking with it a bit 'post-production' but hopefully it gives you an idea of the festive atmosphere.

Anyway, just a short blog update today: I can't believe we're already half way into December! I have lots of post-show admin to do (that means putting boxes of pots away...) and still lots of queueing at the post office sending off Christmas orders. But hopefully I might get some time to blog again before Christmas!

After the show: Quarr Abbey

(Festive berries in the abbey grounds)

It’s been a few days now since the end of our 6-day show at Quarr Abbey. We were very busy for the whole week and had an excellent time. We counted just under 700 visitors in total through the door which we’re pretty chuffed about! And all of us who exhibited had a very successful week. This was also the first time I’ve been able to show my paintings alongside my pots instead of just one or the other – so it was really good to hear what people thought. And luckily the responses to both were very positive! So all in all it was a successful event.

In fact we were so busy most days that we didn’t get much time to enjoy the abbey grounds for ourselves! The abbey is a lovely place to visit. As well as the new gallery/exhibition space (which has a changing show every week) there’s a tea room, gardens, a bookshop and also some country walks on the land owned by the monks which include the ruins of the old monastery. I did manage to get away from the gallery to take a few pictures though and above is a composite of some of them. The top row shows an exterior and interior of the main church while the image below is an interior shot of the Pilgrims Chapel (which was lovely and peaceful inside). And finally of course I had to include a picture of the gorgeous piggies that live on the abbey grounds!

The composite image above shows an exterior of the building which houses both the bookshop (on the right of the arch) and the new gallery/exhibition space (on the left) which was where our show was held. The image on the top right is a view of my ‘stand’ including pots and paintings (you might recognise the pear picture!) The image directly below this is taken looking back into the room towards the main entrance across some of the other stands in our show. The little red Christmas star decoration is mine by the way: these were one of my best sellers and I have only a couple of these left now!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy looking at these pictures. Here are some links to the abbey website and also to my fellow exhibitors. Thanks guys for a lovely week and to everyone who came to see us!

Quarr Abbey

Gill Chapman

Henny Penny Designs

Lis Toft

Sue Wright Handknits

Second-hand Pot

Saw this jug/pitcher in a second-hand shop the other day for just seven quid and decided I must have it. There’s a potter’s stamp on the base with the initials J W but so far I haven’t been able to track down who that might be (based on the style and after a bit of Googling). Whoever made it was clearly influenced by the Leach tradition - but then what potter hasn’t been?! So that doesn’t narrow it down much. Anyway, it’s a lovely no-nonsense sort of pot which is growing on me each day. Yesterday, despite my rotten cold, I braved the freezing weather (a sprinkle of snow) and picked some tall stems of holly from the copse down the road and arranged a spray of them in my new pot. They look fantastic. Unfortunately the light’s so bad at the moment I can’t take a proper photo of the whole display without it all going wildly out of focus. So these were the best of the photos that came out…

Other news. It’s been a bit busy round here lately. Since my last blog entry I’ve done two Christmas craft shows, finished off my Christmas orders, caught a cold, stood in line at the post office queue and had a very exciting rush of sales on my Folksy shop which I’m over the moon about. I also discovered that I was listed in the Folksy Sampler which, until I got my hands on a copy, I had no idea about. So thank you to Folksy admin for listing me and to the lovely Jackie of Henny Penny Designs for letting me keep a copy!

Short and sweet today. Hopefully I will get some time in the next few days to blog again.

Festive Finishing Touches

(Buy this set of stoneware stars here)

Making seasonal gift ideas in ceramics is a long term affair. You have to plan ahead otherwise time soon catches up with you. So this year I started making ceramic Christmas decorations back in the Summer. Normally I’m the type of person who really objects to Christmas decorations appearing anywhere and everywhere before December. But this year I feel strangely compelled to let my own little decorations loose into the world as soon as possible! So although December is still a week or so away, I thought I would blog a medley of photos of my handmade ceramic stars.

(Buy this set of ceramic stars here)

Each star has been handmade from stoneware clay and glazed on one side. The larger brown-fleck stars have been reduction fired in a gas kiln which has given them a lovely toasted appearance. The smaller white stars are fired in an electric kiln and glazed in a plain white glaze.

Finding the right details to finish off your creations is not always easy. I’ve strung the brown-fleck stars on a festive red ribbon with a simple bow which I think sets them off beautifully and has a rich warm quality. I wanted a more delicate, sparkly type of thread for the smaller white stars but finding the right one proved difficult. I made several disappointing trips to my local sewing shops in search of just the right texture and quality – but found nothing that fitted the bill. Then I suddenly remembered making cords out of strands of wool when I was a kid and realized I should make my own hand-twisted thread.

And here’s how I made it:

I chose a plain white cotton thread, a strong durable silver thread and a sparkly, flimsy gold thread, all of which were unsuitable on their own. Then I measured out a strand of each of these threads to a length about three times as long as I wanted the final cord to be. Then I held the ends of all three between my thumb and finger on my left hand as I twisted the other ends in my right, keeping them taut. When the cord was tightly twisted, I looped it over a nail or hook at the middle point and then lined up the two ends so they met. Then I lifted the cord off the hook. The tightly twisted cord quickly springs back on itself and the two sides twist together to form a thicker, stronger single cord. If you’ve never done this, then try it: it’s a clever little trick. The result in this case was a perfect sparkly thread that has proved far better than any I could have bought.

You just never know when childhood pastimes will come in handy.