Arrival

After a frenzy of packing and two days driving, I arrived at our little cabin, which Don and I refer to as "The Studio". We unpacked the car and set all my tools and materials in my corner work area near the spiral stairs...did I ever mention how much I love spirals? ;-)

Sneak Preview from the Kiln

A few of the goodies I unloaded from my latest fire...

Kiln Unloading

This was probably the most bead-intesive firing I've done to date. Normally, I fire mostly large components and pottery with only a few beads. Though it doesn't look like much, this load took an incredible amount of time to form, bisque fire, paint, carefully arrange onto bead racks, then finally fire. It turned out to take a good deal more time than I planned, causing me to delay my trip to the cabin by a day (leaving tomorrow - yay!).  

But I am super excited because I am keep a good portion of these for my own jewelry work instead of selling them outright.

A Collaboration...

I could barely contain myself all day. I had checked the shipping status for a package I was expecting and saw that it was due to be delivered today (!!!). It contained the results of a collaboration with Shannon LeVart (missficklemedia). About a month ago I made a batch of ceramic hoops and sent them off to Florida for Shannon to make toggles for. I was so thrilled to open my box of treasures (which contained a whole bunch of other amazing goodies too!) and find these...

Blue Onion

While visiting my folks in a little town in Illinois, I bought this precious little cream pitcher from a local antique store. I immediately fell in love with is clean german-tankard style lines, and the lyrical blue onion decoration. I want to explore this shape in my own pottery, and perhaps the blue onion style as a slip decoration.