Electric mittens

I finally got my conductive thread and LEDs. A couple weeks ago I was inspired by Fio's electric mitts and reminded of Eleanor Kent's electro-luminescence pieces.  I want the mittens to light up the constellations when they touch, but I also want the batteries to run a hand warmer or a little radio or something. 

In other "projects with wires" news, ceramic gramophone 1.0 was bisqued and does not work. As soon as I dig up a styrofoam cone I'll roll out 2.0 thinner and more Georgia O'Keefe-ish.

Leaf plate

I've been making leaf plates. I like the idea of a table covered in black or very dark navy linen and filled with ceramic leaf plates of food. I need to make these much larger - leaf platters.

Ceramic gramophone

Look at these beauties! Caption reads: Jason Marks' Euphorn channels the sound from an iPod, £230 or £990 to order. 

Kawai Kanjiro's house in Kyoto

This beautiful old wooden house belonged to the potter and sculptor Kawai Kanjiro. You naturally whisper here. This is the most wonderful place that we visited in Kyoto. We bumped into the Art Deco Nintendo building on the way, and got lost in an alleyway lined with diminutive mint green washing machines. Afterwards we walked through a cemetery that quietly led to the Kiyomizu Temple side entrance and then out the back gate to hike in the hills. Even in June, there are ways to navigate the city so that you feel you are among dozens of tourists, not thousands.

Ceramic bottles

More images from the Mingei book - these ceramic bottles would be lovely in the kitchen with cork tops. I would glaze the inside and use it for meyer lemon concentrate - which tastes incredible chilled in tiny tea cups!

Tea pot of bowls

Carol McNicoll's tea pot in the FT last week reminded me of Kate's comment on my last post about pottery. All across my kitchen are stacks of bowls, salt bowls, olive pit bows, sherbet bowls, cereal bowls. I'm going to try something like this and call it, "All I can make is bowls."

Yarn Ball Bowl

I've been trying out different glazes. This reminds me of Early American dishes. I should make a yarn ball set with matching yarn domes - those upside-down bowls that cover yarn balls with a hole for the strand of yarn - so the ball doesn't roll under your couch. Wouldn't a matching teapot be lovely with blue yarn woven around it? I can't make teapots yet.

Yarn ball plates

I decided to try something a little different with my pottery. I painted these plates thinking of the woodcut yarn ball on the cover of Mason-Dixon Knitting. I'm going to keep working on this design - thin the cobalt a little, take more care when painting. For the cups, I'm going to cut the yarn design into the bottoms. My goal now is to make a tea pot resembling an old stove-top "fat keeper" I saw in a book at the library. It was all slap dash and wire - with an orphaned tin cap for a lid. 

Clay, beads and wire

I tore this picture of Iradj Moini's insect brooches from an old Vogue. I would like to make creatures like these with leftover clay and wire - fantastical creatures and backyard specimens. I love clay pots with wire handles, why not clay beetles with wire legs - that hold the mail, my glasses, Bart passes?

A Platter of Figs

I love cookbooks, especially when they are beautifully photographed, written and printed like David Tanis's A Platter of Figs. I need to concentrate on making platters for these menus. I also need to roll out some plates and whistles for Christmas.

World Made by Hand

Mr. Lear just read World Made by Hand by James Kunstler, and so I have it second-hand, but the story has changed me. It's about the end of fossil fuel, set in a future blown back to pre-industrial times.

In my own "made by hand" experiment, I used the kick wheel at the studio yesterday. On the electric wheel, my potting is slapstick and fast. On the foot-powered wheel, it is lumbering and thoughtful. On the electric wheel, my bowls are shaped against the power of the motor, and on the kick wheel it is just me. Making things by hand, powered by my body and using my head changes me. I need to do this more.

Green socks and soup

I need to make some St. Patrick's Day socks - this green yarn goes in the runcible bin. I don't have anything Irish to throw in with it. I'm afraid if I throw in Seamus Heaney's Beowulf it will come out all Anglo-Saxon. I can't find my claddagh ring. The Irish wool is hybernating. I'm throwing in McCann's Irish oats.

In the pottery studio, I am in the soup and cereal bowl stage. I am slowly replacing our plates and bowls with my own.

Noro scarf and bird sculpture

For the rest of my life, I am only going to knit Noro stripes. My little clay bird whistle didn't work out - his sides were too thick. So I've carved a whole in the bottom where you can attach him to a tree. I'm going to paint a little white slip on him and his five brothers. I should go out in the yard and find some leaves and acorn caps to make feather marks.

The Technique of Handbuilt Pottery

Mollie Winterburn's The Technique of Handbuilt Pottery contains so many great project ideas from her experience teaching school children. Above is a mural of bird tiles set in plaster. Each part of the birds is textured with things from nature like corn and nuts and twigs.

The penny whistles are simply pinch pots with a hole for whistling and a sharp slit where the air escapes. She mentions the many Native American whistles that were shaped like animals and simply painted.

This gives me more projects to do with all the clay I have twisted and slopped while trying to center on the wheel!

Pots and Damask

Apologies for the dim picture - it gets so dark so early now! Slowly the stack of olive pit bowls and Damask grow, very slowly.

Basket book

I've been working on baskets today. I keep a lot of #2 and #4 reed on top of the armoire so when out of the blue I need a toothbrush basket, it's there. I use Mara Cary's Useful Baskets, a pair of kitchen scissors and a dishpan of warm water. Coffee or tea is helpful.

I'm planning a wash basket that can be stenciled. A long time ago I saw a college laundry basket stenciled in black with a house name and then a string of room numbers. I love that combination of reed and stencil - not tulips, not Easter bunnies - harsh black numbers.

One day, I'll be able to throw teapots on the wheel and I will weave them reed handles with a set of reed-handled cups. I'm still making olive pit bowls.

Olive pit bowls and a slow cooker

I am busy perfecting olive pit bowls and reading The Gourmet Slow Cooker. I want to be one of those people who has an incredible meal waiting for them in the slow cooker! Right now I am making rice pudding. Tomorrow? applesauce! I'm working my way up to chicken curry. By then I should be able to manage some large shallow bowls to serve it in.

Damask and pottery

Last week I glazed these two unclaimed bowls from the summer semester. I had nothing of my own ready for glazing. I wasn't even really interested in glazing, I just dunked them a few times and put them on the shelf! But I love them! I'm sure I'll never be able to duplicate this; it only happens when you're not looking and don't care. The Damask pattern is coming along slowly.

World of Interiors review

My favorite knitting, painting, quilting, potting magazine rolled into one - the October issue of The World of Interiors is out.

For knitting - this fishy fabric on the left called "En Rangs Serres" by Nobilis has struck me as a wonderful sweater idea for my little chum - a semi-solid black background with blue and silvery white intarsia sardines? whales? swimming round and round.

I don't know whether to Fair Isle knit these next two around a vest or hand stamp some fabric: Peter Fasano's chunky "Martini"and Galbraith & Paul's kiwi "Mountains" fabrics.


In painting - This rainy backdrop painted by Annie Millar has struck me as the perfect wall mural for a long hallway on the North side of the house.










And for the ceramicist - tiles by the artist Guidette Carbonell based on her daughters' bird drawings decorate her bathroom in Beauce.

Pendants and tiles and crochet

This terracotta tile of St. Thomas Becket being led away by knights hangs in our hallway. It's from the Black Dog of Wells - they make hundreds of different tiles. We have several from a stop at Salisbury Cathedral. I've been playing with the idea of knitting them into a curtain - like large beads in a macrame piece.

Emily Murphy's pottery blog has lovely pictures of the pendants she took to Burning Man posted on September 17. The way the cord is attached reminds me of the pull tab crochet in Craftzine. I'm thinking about a crocheted lace bag using small tiles or small dancing ladies, or a kitchen window of terracotta rings joined with freestyle hemp crochet. There are great opportunities combining large and small pieces of terracotta with knitted/crocheted lace! Imagine an outdoor piece that creates a lace and tile wall in the garden!