I bought myself an extruder for the holidays. Just got it mounted. Craig decided it needed to be mounted to a board then to the wall so that it was attached to two studs. It might be overkill or it might be saving the walls. I went with one from Steel Potter at The Ceramic Shop. It's not well known, but I was obsessed with their dies.
So I started down the path last week with the work around for all my images. I didn't realize that it was "working" because I'm logged into Google. So if you're logged into Google on your browser then rainbows and butterflies - all the images work for 2023 (that's as far as I got). However, if you don't have a google account or aren't logged in, then you're not seeing anything. Google still has the issue assigned and hasn't said they aren't going to fix it yet, but I am wondering at this point if they will. They haven't posted anything since 2 days after it happened even though more people post about having the issue each day. For them this isn't a big deal, but for small business it's huge.
sigh
I love the bowls that I make and how big they are, but they don't stack very well. I wanted to play with some stackable bowls. I made 4 blank and 4 crab. This is the last crab one I made that I feel like came out the best. I've gotten really good at mug shapes, but definitely struggle more with bowls. This one is interesting because the diameter of the top and bottom are much different. I still have to clean up the rim once it's leather hard.
I bought a set of these molds for myself over the holidays. There's no texture on them now because I want to play with glaze techniques later. These two vases are the small and the medium, haven't had a chance to make the large yet.
I feel like I'm getting better at smoothing the clay in the puzzling molds.
I got these balloon stamps not too long after my hot air balloon ride. This fall was such a whirlwind that I didn't get a chance to use them. I wanted to make them a bit 3D. I'm hoping the baloons really pop with the glaze.
Making my way through all the blog posts. I've got a routine down to fix all the pages, but there are just so many that it takes a long time. I am going to cry if Google breaks this too at some point. I'm travelling for work for the next few days so my progress will likely slow.
I found a feasible work around for the broken images where I don't have to migrate everything. I'm hoping that Google won't break this as well, but they've been rather close lipped about it so who knows. The process isn't hard this way - copy the code, paste into word, find and replace, copy, paste back, and then publish. I fixed all the glaze pages this morning. The blog pages will take more time, I have almost 500 blog posts - how did that happen?!
When I was looking at the reindeer mold this tree popped up and I wanted to try it out. What I coudln't see in the picture on Amazon is that there are non-colored dots outside of the tree. I'm also not sure if the texture is deep enough. It doesn't help that I over corn starched a bit. I will keep you posted how this comes out (if it comes out).
I've found a couple of work arounds for the broken images, but I'm not really happy with any of them. Also I have nearly 500 posts and pages and updating every one individually is a daunting task. Google suggested a work around using a slightly different format for linking than I've used in the past. I tried it out on my post on the reindeer ornament and while it works, it looks terrible. It makes it look like all the photos are slightly out of focus.
The other alternative I've found is uploading directly in Blogger which is the tool that I use to host this web site. It works and it's what I'm using for the photo below, but while uploading an image is fairly easy, it doesn't actually give me a way to manage photos. I also haven't found a way to upload more than one image at a time which would mean real slow going for fixing all previous posts. I've been looking into other photo hosting sites, but it seems like all of them almost act like social media sites posting your videos out to the community. Not that I think I produce things that people are going to want to steal on a daily basis, having them in that arena feels like it's more likely that people will take my photos and use them for another context.
I'm exhausted by this whole thing and I haven't even had to do any migration of photos yet. This all just feels like it should be simpler. sigh.
In other news I am still making things even though I haven't been posting. This is the first time I've used coils of Laguna 60. I kept putting off cleaning my handheld extruder becuase it felt difficult. I ended up buying a second extruder on sale during the holidays. Problem solved, no cleaning needed. Obviously having two large extruders would be cost prohibitive, but the handheld ones aren't that expensive.
I've been thinking about luminaries for a few weeks now so of course that's where I started. I made a few different shapes to decide which ones I like best. I also had an idea for a little luminary gnome that I tried out, but I put it on too tight and it did not make it off the cone. I am definitely going to try again.
Last week Google did something that broke all the images on this web site. Just what I needed in my life. There is a work around, but also it will take hours to fix every link on every post and page. I'm going to ride this out for a week or so hoping Google fixes before I try to resolve all the images.
Update: I was trying out Google's work around for images on this post. It looks terrible, but I don't have a solid alternative yet. If you click on the individual images they should render and not look blurry. Apologies, and thank you for bearing with me while I figure this out.
Back in December I was searching for something on Amazon and they recommended this cute little silicone mold. I loved it, but I decided that it was too late to do anything for this year. I left it in my cart though and last week decided to buy it (and a few more texture items coming soon). I couldn't wait to try it out, but not working with a lot of silicone molds there was definitely a learning curve.
I started with a fairly wet piece of clay. I know enough about molds to know that dry clay would crack.
As I was removing the clay I quickly realized that with the arms being separate that they needed to come out first since they are recessed. I set them aside and worked on the main body.
I learned quickly to be gentle as I decapidated a couple of reindeers. Since this mold is a bit like a Y it definitely took figuring out how to loosen it without breaking off parts. I had to be very gentle.
I also learned that leaving extra clay on the back beyond the seems meant that I'd have to do more shaping/cutting later.
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It looks a little demented without arms.
I tried two different arm attachments. I like them both. I might end up with a favorite once we get through the whole process, but I don't have one yet - do you?
I finished this sweater over the holidays. Until I started this blog post I didn't even realize it's also Christmasy colors. I don't have a pattern for this because I worked and reworked this sweater too many times and I lost track. The yarn I used is Mirepoix and Hornet from Into the Whirled in DK weight. I actually had more of the Hornet than the Mirepoix, but I forgot that when starting this at a show and started with the Mirepoix. So of course I ran out in the middle and had to buy more. It's not an exact match because its definitely different dye lots, but its the sleeves and the pockets and I feel like the only person who will notice it is me.
The back and the front panels is a simple moss stitch. This is made by doing single crochet and chain all the way across. You're always single crocheting in the chain stitches and it creates a nice neat pattern. I made it really long, hitting me mid calf, and I'm hoping it doesn't stretch too much.
The color is just alternating rows of half double crochet and half double crochet back loop only. I made the collar extra wide at 14 rows. The pockets are mostly the Mirepoix with just one row of Hornet. They are actually probably a little low, but I really like the look.
I'm still debating whether I add a button or three. The original button I had in mind looked good in theory, but is too big for the half double crochet stitches. I've considered making a button hole. I don't know - what do you think?
At one of my December shows I was a klutz and knocked over my ornament trees. Surprisingly I only had 4 ornaments break. One was beyond repair, but the other three were just broken in one place. I've been wanting to try kintsugi for a long time and even had a few other pieces set aside for when I finally got around to it. I decided to take the plunge and try it. I already have e6000 that I use for making magnets and decided for this first foray that would be good enough as an adhesive. So all I needed was the leaf adhesive and the metal leaf paper.
I had done a good bit of research and decided that I could use imitation leaf vs spending on the real thing for my first try. I did have 3 colors to choose from (gold, silver, brass), but for these I went with all gold.
Step 1 was to do a little sanding. Two of the larger plates weren't actually broken they just had a deep crack. I sanded the edges so they weren't as rough. Step 2 was to glue the pieces together. As I said before I used e-6000 as the glue. For the pieces with the cracks I just wanted to fill them in. It took me a couple of tries to figure out how to get glue into the cracks without having it spill over. It was some careful wiping down. I let the glue dry overnight so it had time to solidify.
Step 3 is to add the leaf adhesive. The directions said to let it dry for 30 minutes or until it isn't cloudy any more. I made my fingers sticky touching it. Step 4 is to add the gold leaf. It's hard because if you get the adhesive on your fingers then the paper sticks to your hands and not the pottery. Took me only one try to learn that lesson. It helped at some points to break the leaf into smaller pieces before I tried to apply it. I found that for different pieces I liked different widths of the leaf. For the first piece I did the front first and then switched to doing the back first so that I could learn more. The first side you do needs to be completely done so that you don't have other things sticking to the adhesive.
The last step is to spray with a sealer. I only had a matte sealer and I thought it wouldn't make a difference. It absolutely did. I still like these pieces, but I will definitely be buying a gloss sealer for the future.
This was really fun to try, but I definitely won't be doing it frequently. I did put the ornaments on my tree immediately and love them. However, the plates aren't functional. They will make nice wall art, but these aren't things that I think most people would want. I don't have a lot of pieces break in the firing process, but those that do will likely continue to end up in the trash. I will reserve this for speical pieces that break that I don't want to lose.
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