Buttons and Beads

I think I've probably been attending pottery classes for about fifteen months now and I'd recommend it to anyone who feels as though life's stresses are getting the better of them as there is something very relaxing about handling clay, we have a great bunch of students and a very talented pottery teacher who tells us some of the funniest stories!  If you've ever watched the brilliant and sadly missed UK tv series "The Great Pottery Throw Down" then you'll already know that making pottery can in itself be quite a funny experience... not that I've tried pulling mug handles myself yet 😉

Like with a number of my other hobbies, I really like working on a small scale and as I already enjoy sewing and making jewellery, button and bead making feel like a very natural pursuit, although I do on occasion tackle bigger projects too.  I'm fascinated by the many different techniques and the different properties of the different types of clay.  I love experimenting and pushing the materials and at the moment I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to fill that clay shaped hole in my life over the summer holidays until I start a very exciting City and Guilds pottery course in September!

In the meantime, I'll leave you with some photos of my latest batch of buttons and beads...

The buttons are all porcelain, which has been rolled out on a number of different materials to produce different textures and the beads at the bottom of the photo have been created by mixing three different types of clay together.  Up close some of them look like little planets.

The Dark Destroyer!

My youngest cat Sirius came to join our little family about five months ago. He can be really sweet and cuddly, and of course like any kitten, he's playful and curious about everything that goes on around him, he also has a strange little habit of wanting to suckle on my right earlobe! He picks his moments carefully - usually when my hands are busy, so I end up trying to complete a task while trying to defend my right ear from a very determined kitten... and I also have no idea why he always goes for my right ear and never the left one...?

His nickname of the Dark Destroyer (or DD for short) was given to him by one of my friends and is actually quite well deserved.  In the last five months since he moved in, he's chewed through three phone charging cables, has knocked my two house plants over more times than I can remember, broken four vases, including a beautiful sea urchin inspired one made for me by my pottery teacher, my paint brushes are now kept in a jam jar instead of a pretty jug and a hare ornament a friend gave me for Christmas is sadly no more.  I'm not even going to count all the things that have bounced, like the dinner plate he knocked off the cooker top earlier today but I am going to mention that he is the chief suspect in the mystery of the disappearing paintbrush bristles.  If anyone can think of a use for a flat brush with just a few remaining bristles on each end, please comment below!

Having said all that, I know his naughtiness is just a phase and one day he will calm down and crafting will become less of a challenge again. On the plus side, my older cat Marley is a lot less stressed about being left if I have to go out, and he has to a certain extent embraced his inner kitten again, which is lovely to see.  I love seeing them curled up sleeping side by side on the sofa which has happened a few times now, though at the moment you're more likely to see them both sprawled out on the floor near the fan in this hot weather, and I love watching them play.

Someone once asked me why I'd named my youngest cat after the Dog Star - my reply was that as a Harry Potter fan, Sirius (Black) was the first name that popped into my head when I met him and it just stuck.  It never occurred to me that I was naming my cat after a dog... but then, there's a certain consistency to that as my son named my older cat after the labrador in the film Marley and Me. 🙂

A New Look and Raku Pottery

I've decided on a fresh new look for my blog - that red was a bit overwhelming, I hadn't realised it was so long since I last added a post, so it's definitely time for a new one!  I've also recently gone for a new look for myself too - losing my shoulder length hair in favour of a pixie cut, which I have to say feels so much more comfortable in the current warm weather.

Last time I had a drastic hair cut, I donated the surplus hair to the Little Princess Trust, who are a U.K. based charity who make wigs for children with cancer, unfortunately I've developed a few more "silver highlights" in the last few years so I'm not sure how useful the current batch is likely to be, I'm hoping they can use the hair from around the back and I've saved the greyer sides for myself and my pottery class.

I started pottery classes just over a year ago when I was looking for a distraction from a stressful situation, I have to say I find playing with clay very soothing and I love the fact that there is so many new techniques to learn.  This week was the second time I've been involved in a raku firing but the first time I've tried naked raku and horsehair raku, though no horsehair was involved... I used a feather my youngest cat Sirius removed from one of his toys and some of my spare hair.  This is the result...