Sunday Scribblings "Late"

G'Day,
This weeks Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Late". These pots are pretty late. Almost didn't get them done for Christmas. The Canberra potter's society got a grant to build a new kiln shed which they recently finished so all firing has had to wait a while. The new kiln shed is great, very spacious and room to fit all of the kilns in together. They have been very busy catching up on the backlog of firing accumulated while the work was being completed.
I made all of these pots about 3 months ago at the pottery course I enjoyed. The course was called repetitive throwing. We started off with the cylinders, the first picture is of one of six I made that were supposed to match in size, weight, decoration and design. Well they are not perfect but they are not too bad either, anyway pottery is supposed to look handmade and I don't like perfect. I decorated them the same to match and they are now a set of tumblers. Pottery tumblers are great for drinking cold drinks because they keep your drink cold for longer. Good for wine on a hot summer days.
This is the (sort of) matching set of 4 bowls, 4 mugs and the tumblers. I turned them upside down for this picture so you could see the lines I like to turn into the base of my pots. They serve a couple of purposes. Decoration, a bit of a trade mark for my pots, but they also serve a practical purpose of stopping the glaze from running too far down the pot and possibly sticking it to the shelf and also making a definitive mark to wipe the glaze back to before the pots are fired.
The platter above is one I made while still in Junee so it can really be classed as late. I bought it here with me already bisque fired so I only had to glaze it. It is glazed with the same glaze as the other pots shown here but it's extra colour comes from the clay it was made from which contains iron. I made it after a visit to the south coast on a sea and sand idea I had at the time. It is one of two, and is a second as you can see, because it has a few cracks in it so I will give this one away and keep the good one to use at home.Someone can use it as a plant saucer or something. Not that it couldn't be used for food or cooking in, as the crack is only on the edge and the crack that you can't see on the bottom of the pot is only a surface crack and does not go through to the other side, but, as a second...well you know.
The other platter and the second one are shown together here. I actually like the glaze pattern on the second one better than the good one. It looks a bit like it has foamy waves breaking on the sand.
The pots above and below are of the mugs I made at the repetitive throwing course. I really like this glaze, but I feel as if I have cheated a bit as it is a club glaze available for members to use and not one of my own. As well as the fact that I didn't fire it myself. But isn't it a lovely glaze, it is called speckled white and is oxidation fired in an electric kiln to a stoneware temperature of 1280 degrees Celsius. I have already tested my new mugs out. I sort of made them with soup in mind but I will use them for everyday tea and coffee. The rims are good, which is an important design consideration. I am sure everyone knows what drinking out of a comfortable mug feels like as opposed to one which does not balance nicely in your hand and has an unpleasant rim against your lips.

All of these pictures were taken today out on my back table. I only picked up the pots this morning. I wanted to get them before Christmas as I told my boss Brett that I would give him something from when I did the course as he filled in for me by cleaning the office we do of an evening so I could get there.He can have the 4 bowls and the seconds platter too if he wants it for something. So, not too late for Christmas.
There are still 2 dinner sized plates that hadn't been through the glaze firing yet, but they should be ready on Wednesday. One of them is in the speckled white glaze , but I carved a pattern in the bottom of the second plate as I was getting sick of trying to repeat things by then and cut into it. I glazed thatone in a clear green glaze to see if it would fill up the carved patterns. It should, I hope it does. I was supposed to make a set of four plates as well, but I wasn't having much luck with them and gave up. I learnt a lot from the course and it was worthwhile. The tutor, Cathy, did lots of things different from the way I had learned them so that was good. Un learning my old ways might be a different matter. It is being run again but as my work hours clash I thought I had best not push my luck too much and have a look at something else later next year instead. The potter's society has lots of great courses running regularly. Hopefully some of them won't clash with my work hours.
I am feeling quite happy with myself and the results of these pots,and looking forward to doing more stuff with them. The guy who is the administrator at the club said he had been admiring my pots and they were well done before I came to pick them up this morning so I was quite chuffed to get a compliment off him, he is a very good potter. It was his wife who taught my course.
Well that is my post about late pots. Sorry if I bored people uninterested in pottery. I could write heaps about pottery, just like others might who are interested in sport, or politics, or whatever.... I am not into sport but I love my pottery.

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This morning before going to the Potter's Society to pick up my pots, Mum and I took a detour to the farmer's markets. The little pull along shopping basket I bought in Melbourne a few years ago was worth it's weight in gold today, he he. I really like shopping at markets and find it much more enjoyable than going to a supermarket to get my stuff. Anyway I had a lovely time sticky beaking at everything. There are some really interesting things there. Apart from the fruits and vegetables, you can get cheap plants and exotic breads, jam, condiments, meat, ready made recipe bases, coffees and teas, etc etc...Good fun. I had a cup of the best home made chai latte and we shared a punnet of freshly picked blackberries. It was funny, while we stopped to look at something on one of the stalls a chinese lady came past and saw the punnet of berries that we had put down beside us for a minute and she thought they were free samples and helped herself to a couple of them. Mum and I looked at each other and cracked up laughing. I think I spent about $60 on all sorts of bit and pieces. Yummy things you couldn't get in the country where I lived before here.
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Late!
It is never too late!
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Bye for now.
Love Linda.