How to Make a Wood Ash Glaze (Revisited)

Wood Ash Glaze Tests

One of my most popular posts on this blog has been the one about how to make a wood ash glaze. It seems there's quite a few potters out there looking for information on this. So I thought I'd do an update in case anyone finds it useful or interesting!

I've completely run out of my first ash glaze - the one I made back in 2013. It was such a lovely glaze I used it on lots of pots. Since then I've moved house and now have a garden with mature trees which are always dropping branches. So I've got plenty of opportunities to gather wood ash from fires. I now have 2 bags of ash from the last 2 years of collecting.

Some of the trees in my garden

I don't separate the wood types when burning because it would take too long to gather enough ash. So the ash I've collected is a mixture of lots of different wood types including Ash, Chestnut, Apple, Oak, Damson and Hazel. We've also got a wood burning stove, so there's a mixture of 'shop bought' logs in there too.

Last time I posted about ash glazes I showed the glazing part. But this time I thought I'd do an update showing the ash sorting process. It's pretty simple really. Get your 'white' ash from a fire. It will have bits in it (leaves, twigs, charcoal etc). Then I use a normal kitchen-type sieve to separate the lumpy stuff from the white ash. 

Sorting Ash

At first I used a brush to help pass the ash through, but this was pushing bigger pieces past the mesh which I didn't want. So in the end I just tapped the sieve repeatedly on the side of the bucket and this was enough to shake it all through.

And that's it! No mystery. It does take a while to do though...at least a couple of hours just to sort through two buckets. These photos were actually taken back in July on a very hot day. Sorting ash is a messy business so I sat in the garden in the shade under the trees wearing a mask and goggles and tried to avoid breathing in dust!

The first bucket of ash had hardly any debris because it came from outdoor firings (lots of leaves, twigs and cardboard burned). But the second bucket had lots of charcoal pieces left over from the wood burner - as you can see in the photo below. I've also kept the charcoal separately because it still had plenty of fuel left in it and I intended to use that for something else - which I will post about another time! And you might notice I also broke my sieve doing this bucket!

As you can see from the photo below, the end result is quite a uniform fine grey/white ash. And this is what I use as a dry ingredient in a wood ash recipe. I don't bother washing the ash because it seems to work fine without. (This might be because it's a mixture of wood types rather than just one.) I then use a 60 mesh to sieve the glaze. I usually don't use a finer mesh than this because I feel it takes out some of the 'material' that makes the glaze unique.

Wood Ash: ready to use

I've also made a couple of glaze recipe tests. The top tile test is the same recipe as the one from my original post. But it's a bit dry and matte this time around. So I think I'm going to try it again with a percentage of iron oxide - this might loosen it up a bit and make it more glossy. That's my guess anyway!

Wood Ash Glaze Test Tiles

But the bottom tile I really like. It's a recipe from Emmanuel Cooper's The Potter's Book of Glaze Recipes 181 page 102. A lovely pale green with a fleck. So I'm going to make a batch of this and try it out on some pots. I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that - and it might have been interesting or useful to someone! Thanks for reading!

This Week I Will Be Mostly...Glazing.

This week it's all about glazing. In fact I have plenty of glazing to do because I have enough bisque fired pots to fire two glaze kilns (which I plan to fire next week - all being well of course).

In the photo above you can see the kiln shed as it was a week or so ago -with pots waiting to be fired in the bisque kiln. And below are a few last minute shelf fillers - some tiny stoneware cottages, in a mixture of stoneware and black clays.

After I fire a kiln I always leave it to cool for a whole day in between. This makes sure all the pots are cooled down to 'room temperature' before I crack it open. Even so, they can still ping with the temperature change and make noises! I cracked this bisque kiln open last Friday: and below shows the kiln shed after I've opened and unpacked everything.

You can pack more pots into a bisque firing than into a glaze. In a bisque kiln the pots can touch each other and be stacked, but in a glaze they can't. So I already had some 'spare' bisque fired pots left over from the last firing. And this is why I've got two glaze kiln's worth of pots to glaze this week.

As you can see in the photo above and below there's a variety of small batches here. I've discovered that small batching in this way makes the best economical use of my kiln. Over time you get to know how many pots will fit onto each shelf and in what combinations. Even so, I still scribble a small 'floor plan' of each kiln shelf for each glaze kiln just to make sure everything will fit. There's nothing worse than having a couple of glazed pots left over which you can't fit in!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these photos. My studio is currently a mess of glazing buckets, sponges and sieves! And there's still plenty of pots left to do...

Setting Up the New Studio

New Shelves (and Brackets!) in the Kiln Shed

It's been a busy few months setting up the new studio. In fact so much has been happening I'm not sure where to begin blogging about it! I also didn't document the process - or progress - very well, so I don't have many photos. But here's the short version of everything that's been happening.

I began setting up the studio in January. The most important thing was getting a new space for the kiln. My poor kiln was stored in the garden shed for three months wrapped in bubblewrap and tarpaulin to keep him warm and dry. Luckily the winter wasn't harsh, so in January a new kiln room could be built ready for the electrics to be installed. The Electrician was booked for the 15th of Feb, which meant Valentine's Day (the day before!) was spent preparing the new space and moving the kiln into situ.

By the way, I don't recommend spending Valentine's Day with just two of you trying to move a 17 stone kiln out of one shed into another over soft mud using improvised duckboards on a steep gradient! Luckily there was only one injury - me. I crushed the palm of my hand between the kiln and the door frame, leaving a lovely big bruise for a week. But at least the kiln was installed safe and sound!

The Kiln in its New Home - Pouring Bowl Sets Stacked for Bisque

Anyway, the kiln room is now officially up and running with some shelves/ware boards (or at least brackets for future shelves!). I also treated my kiln batts to a good clean and a fresh coat of batt wash (pictured drying out below) which I usually do once a year at the start of the new year.

Panorama of One Half of the Main Studio - Kiln Batts Drying Out

In the meantime I also made some pots of course. After being featured in Landscape Magazine, most of the pots I decided to make were custom order pouring bowl sets - as well as a few staple pots like modern pourers. This was ideal really, not only because it meant the kiln was earning its keep, but (as the forms are so well known to me) it also made it easier to get back into the flow of throwing after a break over Christmas.

Freshly Thrown Bowls on Batts - These Became Berry Bowls

In fact, it was a good idea all round to stick to familiar pots I knew how to make and I'd recommend it for a first firing in a new studio. It meant I could quickly plan how to pack the bisque kiln (which pots go where) as I've done it so many times before. It also helped with glazing too. Apart from one big bowl which I glazed in Aqua, I chose to make pots using just my white glaze so I only had to prepare two tubs - there's nothing worse than returning to an old glaze that's been quietly solidifying into an impossible cake at the bottom for three months! Also, the last thing I wanted to do was 'creative glazing' when I didn't even know if the kiln would work. So instead, I tried to keep things as simple and practical as possible.

Pouring Bowl Sets Drying

As for the rest of the studio, things are still 'ad hoc'. It's a work in progress. Things are currently 'in a place', but not necessarily in the ideal place. It's actually quite disorientating working in a new space - even when making familiar pots. Nothing is quite where you thought to remember to put it - if you get my meaning! I'd sit myself down at the wheel thinking I was ready to start when I'd realise I'd forgotten to get something basic - like water. Oh well, I'm sure it will all slot in to place eventually. But at the moment there is still so much to plan and do...

RESULTS...

By the end of March I fired the kiln for its first bisque and also its first glaze! I'm delighted to report that everything went perfectly! The bisque was perfect, the glazing all went well and the glaze firing was perfect too. It was such a relief. It had been on my mind for about a year since deciding to move house - worrying if the kiln would be OK...

Here's a few photos of the pots that came out - my first pots in my new studio.

Since then I've bought some new bags of clay and I'm ready to make more pots and fire more kilns! (Fingers crossed!)

Speckled Stoneware Clay - Some New Pots and Designs

This year I've been using a speckled stoneware clay more often to make new designs. Some of these designs I make exclusively using this clay because they go together so well. When fired, this clay is lighter in colour than my usual stoneware and is best described as 'ecru'. It has a brown speckle throughout which comes from the tiny flecks of iron inside the clay.

As well as being a lovely clay to throw (it's very smooth and creates hardly any mess!) the speckle feature is very versatile. I often leave areas of pots unglazed to show off the natural bare clay. The speckle is great for this as it has lots of interest both visually and also to touch. It's a very tactile surface when fired and feels rougher than my usual stoneware but has a warmth to it too. It's great for making modern style cylinder shapes like my new large fruit bowls and salt and pepper sets (seen in the photos above).

I've also been using the speckle stoneware as a base for some new sgraffito designs (seen above). My usual stoneware clay is a bit too dark for this type of work, so having a lighter clay has allowed me to develop a new range of blue speckle ware. I've made just a few pieces in this style so far (some of which have been bought straight out of the kiln!) It requires brushing on a blue black slip onto the pot whilst still at the leather hard stage. Then I scratch (sgraffito) a design onto the pot. This reveals the light clay underneath giving a contrast. Finally I use a clear glaze over the whole pot to allow both the blue and the bare speckle clay to show through.

The lighter colour of this clay means that when I apply my usual glazes to it, these look very different too. This creates more versatility and options without having to create new glaze recipes. Most of the time though I prefer to use either clear glazes or an oatmeal glaze with this clay - both of which allow the natural speckle and ecru colour to show through. This style creates a very simple but modern feel which I really like.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the photos of some of my speckled stoneware pots! All the pots in the photos above are currently available in my Folksy and Etsy shops.

Packing and Firing a Glaze Kiln

Yesterday I packed and fired a glaze kiln. Above is a composite of all four shelves as I packed them one on top of the next - number 1 being the first or bottom shelf and number 4 being the top. These are what the pots look like when they've had glaze applied, but before they've been fired. In other words they should look different by the time I open the kiln tomorrow!

When I pack the kiln I use the same shelf pattern for almost every firing whether it's bisque or glaze. In other words I put the same height supports between the shelves into every firing, so the gaps or heights between the shelves are in the same arrangement each time. The reason for this is because the manufacturers put the thermocouple in an odd place, restricting where I can place the shelves (see old post rant here!)

But now I've come to think this was a happy accident! Sticking to the same layout is a great way to fire a kiln. It means I always know that the bottom and top shelf can take higher pots of a certain size while the two middle shelves take lower or flatter pieces of a certain size. Bearing mind that when I pack a kiln I have to lean over into it with heavy shelves and fragile pots covered in a delicate dusting of glaze, knowing in advance where the pots can fit nicely is a great advantage. So having a fixed shelf system has made planning and packing every kiln much easier.

Of course the hardest bit about firing a kiln is the waiting! And I've got another 24 hours at least before I'll be able to open it and see the results. Fingers crossed!

Eclipse: Moon Bowls in Black Stoneware Clay

Today we had a solar eclipse. The plan was perfect. Fire the kiln on Thursday (yesterday) so this morning I could watch the eclipse in the garden while I waited for the kiln to cool down. Unfortunately a thick blanket of cloud obscured the entire event! And although it went quite dark around 9.30am (during which time we had a nice piece of carrot cake and a cup of tea) it mostly felt the same as if it was about to start raining. Oh well, never mind! Hopefully the bisque kiln will be fine though and I'll be able to crack it soon and start glazing some pots.

In the meantime - as it's topical - I thought I'd blog about my moon bowls. I've been experimenting with different stoneware clays in the past year or so. One of these clays is a deep black stoneware designed mostly for modelling or sculptural pieces. It can also be used as a throwing clay however - in small doses. It has a very high iron and grog content which makes it very coarse to handle when making. This is perfect for hand modelling but when it comes to throwing (with the wheel spinning round) it feels like your hands are being shredded by sandpaper! When I first used it I raised the roof and could only manage to make one small bowl before I gave up and plastered my poor hands in E45. (People who throw porcelain have no idea...!)

Since then I have modified the original black clay by adding in some of my usual stoneware to make throwing more comfortable. This produces a lovely deep chocolate brown colour when fired and left unglazed. So far I've only used a white glaze on this clay. My usual satin white glaze reacts differently on this clay body producing a really interesting pitting effect. This instantly reminded me of craters on the moon, especially when used on little round bowl shapes. Hence calling them moon bowls.

Would you believe it, as I type the sun is actually coming out?! Time for more tea (maybe another piece of carrot cake) and to check the kiln temperature I think. In the meantime, here's a picture of some more pots and ceramic spoons I've been making with my lovely black/chocolate brown stoneware clay. Enjoy!

How to Make a Wood Ash Glaze

Glaze Mixing

Over the summer I've been doing lots of glaze testing, and one of these has been to find my own Wood Ash Glaze recipe. It's not an easy process. I gathered together several recipes found in pottery books. All of them had a different take on the process - and sometimes conflicting ideas! I tried out four of the recipes with varying success, but now I think have my own version.

Wood Ash

The first thing I had to do was get a source of wood ash. You need at least a kilo of good grey/white ash with as little rubbish in it as possible: the sort you get after a long hot fire. Luckily my sister happened to have some. This came from a mixture of wood species (Cherry, Eucalyptus and general woody plants from the garden) that had been pruned and burned over the previous summer in a chiminea. This meant the ash was very clean and without contaminants like soil, which you might get from a ground fire. Anyway, my sister had collected all this ash in a bucket with the intent on using it to mulch the raspberries; but instead I jumped in and she very kindly let me have it!

First of all I had to clean the ash. This I did by sieving it to get rid of any last bits of twig, stone, carbonised lumps, leaves etc. I sieved it twice using the same sort of sieve as a normal kitchen/household size rather than a glazing sieve: and I wore gloves, goggles and a mask by the way as this stuff isn't too good for you if inhaled. The photo above shows the powder that was left. As you can see it looks very clean. I decided it looked good enough to use just as it was. Many books talk about washing the ash by soaking it, rinsing it and then drying it back to a powder. But this sounded obsessive and unnecessary to me! Instead I decided to use this powder as the dry ingredient in a recipe like any other.

Sieving The Glaze

After lots of little test batches, I decided on my final recipe. This is based on one found in Stephen Murfitt's The Glaze Book. The main ingredients are:

Wood Ash 38

Feldspar 30

China Clay 20

Flint 12

Although I've also added a percentage of Red Iron Oxide. 

After measuring out the ingredients precisely using an electronic scale, I put everything straight into a bucket of water. Then stir! Simple really. Although it would be if I wasn't wearing goggles, a mask and gloves (the donning of which always seems to bring on fits of sneezing...) The pictures above show just a few stages of making up the glaze mixture, which include sieving it at least three times using a 60 mesh glazing sieve. The result is the lovely rose-pink colour of the raw glaze mixture in the last photo.

Dipping Pots

And then it's just a matter of glazing some pots. Above are a couple of photos showing me dipping a jug into the freshly made Wood Ash Glaze. And below are some photos of the latest batch of pots in their raw glazed state, ready to be packed into the kiln...

Jug with Wood Ash Glaze

Glazed Pots Waiting for the Kiln

At the moment I have no idea if these pots have worked. As I type, I'm actually waiting for the kiln to cool down enough so I can open it and see the final results. It's a bit of a nervous waiting game: it could go either way. Below is a test tile of what the glaze looked like during the testing stages. As you can see, it's a very nice simple wood ash glaze fired in an electric kiln. But tests are only tests, and glazes can behave completely differently when put on a pot. So we'll just have to wait and see...

Wood Ash Glaze Test Tile

Glazing and First Glaze Firing

Glazing Bird Bowls

Making Glazes and Glazing Pots.

Since my last blog post I’ve been busy making glazes ready to test them out in the kiln. I prefer making my own glazes from scratch using raw materials rather than buying them ready-made. Knowing what ingredients go into each glaze gives me a certain amount of control over the results. It’s also very satisfying knowing you made the glaze entirely yourself: it feels more personal.

The photo montage above features a batch of my bisque-fired pots being glazed ready for glaze firing. Most of the pots shown are my bird bowls in two different sizes (small and large). As you can see the glazes are quite odd looking in their raw state: in fact they’re often completely different in colour to the final fired result. One is my standard white matt glaze - which happens to look pure white in the raw state. But the other one – shown here highlighting the bird-tail handles - has a rusty colour at this stage, which changes to glossy blue/black when fired.

Once all the pots have dried out for a few days they can be glaze fired.

First Glaze Firing.

Actually, I can’t believe I haven’t already blogged about this yet! I did my first glaze firing in my new kiln about three weeks ago. Long story short, it was an incredibly stressful day. Not least because about eight hours in I made the mistake of fiddling with the control panel and accidentally turned the whole thing of! Luckily I somehow retained enough composure to quickly tap in an emergency program to finish the firing before the temperature started to drop. But the less said about that the better…

Well, next day (a full 24 hours after switch off) the temperature had cooled down enough to risk ‘cracking the kiln’. Bearing in mind the ludicrous mistake I made the day before, I was simply incapable of calling it. I decided either it was going to be a complete disaster (glazes running everywhere, pots ruined – the works) or a total success. Luckily it was the latter! In fact I unpacked the kiln muttering to myself over and over that I couldn’t believe it had worked. Every single pot came out perfect! Both of my glazes worked beautifully and I was incredibly pleased with the results. But I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t be fiddling with the control panel ever again!

Cracking the Kiln!

Today I took some new up-to-date photos and listed some of my small white bird bowls here in my Folksy and Etsy shops. Hope you like them!

Small Bird Bowls

Small Plaque - The Long Journey to Completion

A long time ago (in fact almost exactly two years ago!) I made a small stoneware plaque. At the time I was inspired by a tree motif in a series of illustrations and paintings I was working on. You can read the blog post here. Even then I mentioned I wasn’t sure how I was going to glaze the finished piece. So I put it aside to think about. Since then, although the plaque was subsequently bisque fired, the poor thing sat in a drawer for ages waiting patiently for me to decide.

In one incarnation I planned to raku fire the plaque using a simple white crackle glaze for the background and either glazing the tree green or leaving it carbon black. But believe it or not, despite all the raku firings in the past couple of years, there simply wasn’t room or time between raku orders and stock replacement for me to pop the plaque into the kiln! Unfortunately the poor thing wasn’t a priority in all the flame and sawdust, so it never happened.

My next plan was to reduction fire the piece using a gas kiln. I thought about using a white or clear glaze with wax resist on the tree to highlight the design, creating a speckled effect under the glaze and a dark toasted brown on the unglazed areas. But then, would you believe it, the gas kiln broke! In fact the gas kiln was out of action for many months last year for various reasons. It all began with a misfire caused by a power cut (the controls and safety switch are electric) which plunged the pottery studio into darkness, wheels spinning slowly to a stop. Let’s just say this event ‘coincided’ with the setting-up of the stage and cabling for last year’s Isle of Wight Festival...(!) Anyway, yet again, poor little plaque didn’t get glazed.

Then a couple of months ago I found the forgotten little plaque wrapped in tissue in a drawer; bisque fired but looking quite forlorn. So I made a decision: stick to something simple! I used a mixture of oxides (iron, cobalt and manganese oxides in equal parts) and brushed this into the tree design, wiping back with a damp sponge. Then I took a wide flat brush loaded with plain white glaze and simply ‘swiped’ over the top. Done! Fired in an electric kiln in oxidation and finished at last! You can see the different stages of making – from painting to finished plaque – in the photos at the top of the post. What the photos don’t show is the complicated, logistically chaotic and random stuff that sometimes goes on in the background when you try to made decisions about glazing!

Doing Some Homework...

One area I’ve been meaning to read more about is the Chemistry side of ceramics. Of course it’s perfectly possible to be a potter all your life using all sorts of different clays and glazes without ever needing to know what they’re actually made up of. But that’s not how I do things! I’m one of those analytical creatives who like to know the nitty gritty details of where the materials come from, what they’re called and how they work together. So to brush up on my Chemistry homework, I recently popped into my local library and booked out a rather formidable looking AS level textbook…

It took me a few evenings to read through and gave me quite a lot of head scratching. But once I got past the scientific/robotic language and reassured myself no one was actually going to test me on this (!) I started to get more of an understanding of things. There was even a chapter dedicated to oxidation and reduction featuring pottery kilns as an example, which made me feel justified in making the effort.

Once I got through it, my next point of call was my copy of ‘Minerals, Rocks and Fossils’ published by Philip’s. I’ve had this on my shelf for ten years now and whenever I’ve tried to read it I couldn’t quite get my head around it. It’s full of chemical formulas, geological language and pictures of pretty rocks in crystal form. This time though it all made sense! In fact it read like a natural progression from the Chemistry book and now the poor thing is covered in post-it notes and scribblings about minerals with particular colour properties.

Getting this background information and putting a context to the chemical side of ceramics has cleared-up a lot of vague fuzziness in my head. I feel much more confidant about what the ingredients in a glaze actually are, instead of just taking the names written in a glaze recipe book for granted. I’ve still got more reading to do though before I can start doing some experiments of my own: but it just goes to show that doing a bit of homework really does pay off!

Here are some links to books I was using:

Minerals, Rocks and Fossils (Philip's)

The Glaze Book: A Visual Catalogue... (Stephen Murfitt)

Decorating Pots: Brushwork Practise

Recently I’ve been experimenting and practising my brushwork for use on my ceramics. Anyone looking at my pottery might notice that I don’t really use much decoration; I mostly use one or two simple ‘all-over’ glazes on a pot and that’s it. Even my raku pieces are made in this way. But I’ve been thinking about developing some additional decoration on my pots using combinations of slips and/or oxides. Of course there are lots of ways of applying oxides (they can be dripped on or sponged on for instance) but brushwork is one area I want to explore.

I mentioned in a previous post that I’d bought some new brushes (click here). I’ve been using these to create large, flat marks on some of my pots. The photo above is an example of this on a new vase. This pot has been hand-thrown in stoneware clay and brushed with a white slip beneath a clear glaze. Then iron oxide was brushed on using the smallest of the wide brushes and allowed to drip naturally. The pot was then reduction fired in a gas kiln. As you can see, the iron oxide has created a beautiful deep metallic red/brown mark. (This pot is for sale in my Folksy Shop!)

I also have some Chinese-style potter’s brushes made in bamboo – which you can see above. These are perfect for decorating with oxides or slips. This style of brushwork is something new to me however, so instead of wasting any expensive oxides or fired pots I thought I’d do some practise first! So I used some watered-down acrylic paint on absorbent handmade paper to try out some shapes. Of course paint on paper doesn’t flow in quite the same way as oxides on clay: for one thing oxides absorb instantly onto glazes and the flow of the brush is different too. But it really helped to experiment and get an idea of the shapes and marks that are possible. I also practised some brush marks onto the side of a finished vase – just to get the hang of decorating around a three-dimensional shape.

Overall it was fun to do and a really interesting exercise. You can always learn so much more from doing instead of just looking at pictures! At the moment though it’s still too early to tell whether this is something I will fully pursue or not in my own work. It may end up being something I tried a few times, but wasn’t for me: who knows!

Teapot Revisited: or, What Are We Doing This Year?

In the past couple of weeks I’ve had some time to relax away from making pots and painting, and reflect on just how busy 2010 was for me! Pretty much rushed off my feet for most of the year, or so it seemed! And although it’s been really good and I’ve learnt lots of things and had lots of positive feedback from people, in the last few months I’ve been feeling as though things were running away from me a bit: getting swept along in a rush. And so it seems a perfect time – especially since we’re firmly into 2011 already – for me to re-evaluate what I’m doing.

Hence the photos of this teapot. A long time ago, back in March 2010, I made this ‘unexpected teapot’. It was unexpected mostly because it was hand-built (which I don’t really do, being mostly a potter) and also because it was unplanned and fairly spontaneous. And ever since then I’ve been meaning to blog about it when it came out of the kiln. It came out months ago but I never had the time to mention it. So here it is at last: slightly wobbly around the edges for being hand-built, but charmingly so I hope! It’s been reduction fired in a gas kiln and glazed using a clear glaze that allows the natural iron in the clay to show through as a lovely speckled effect. It’s only small – it holds just enough for a single cup of refreshing green tea - but it’s very cute I hope you’ll agree, and for once I decided to keep it all for myself (which is something I rarely do these days!)

But the point I’m trying to make is that this teapot was an experiment - and recently I’ve been feeling that experiments and creativity have been a bit sidelined in all the noisy demands and logistics of running a small art/craft business. It’s probably inevitable at times that the ‘business’ side of things takes over, but I’ve decided that this year I’m going to be focusing much more on developing what I make by getting back to the creative side of things. Get the balance back. At least that’s the plan.

Oh yes, and I really must do some painting too…

Glazes and Garlic

Over the past couple of days I’ve been sorting through a selection of small accessories that came out of the last glaze kiln. These included buttons, brooches, pendants, rings and miscellaneous ‘blanks’. All of these little pieces require some finishing touches. First I usually smooth them all using sandpaper to soften the edges and make sure they don’t snag on clothing or feel rough against the skin. After sanding I add the fittings like brooch backs and ring findings (I use Araldite as a ceramic fixative and the fittings come from my local bead shop). I also thread the pendants onto lovely new suede thongs and individually attach each button onto card in singles or matching pairs to keep them together. All in all it takes a day or two to go through all the pieces - choosing which items go best with which fitting (and also trying not to glue my fingers together). But it’s all worth it in the end I think – especially now I have a new selection of jewellery and buttons (with brand new glazes!) for my next show.

Talking of which…our next show is coming up very soon. My sister Sue and I will be sharing a stall together again (as Osmosis) at this year's Isle of Wight Garlic Festival next weekend (14^th and 15^th of August). It’s our second year at the festival. Last year was very good for us and we had lots of interest in our work, so we hope it will be successful again this year. We’ll be exhibiting in the Arts and Crafts marquee on site with lots of other local artists and craft makers - and there’ll be plenty of other attractions over the two day event including live music and lovely food stalls with garlic to eat of course! So if you’re in the area, please do drop by: here’s a link to their official site.

And I just wanted to thank Helen again for featuring my bowl on her lovely blog last week: here’s a screenshot, and here’s a link to her blog too. Thanks!