Prudence's Pottery

Another year is coming to an end (the same opening as last year 😛) It has been quite a year and I needed to review my last year review prior starting this one. It was a tough year at work especially the second half of the year.  Things unfortunately didn't go the right direction and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't steer back to the right path.  At least I can say out loud that I'd done my very best.   Work affected me negatively for the most part of September and October, but with what I hear from the news (the natural disasters, the fights between countries), I find myself extremely lucky to have a great family, friends, a job and my hobbies.  I am thankful for this and have left those negative thoughts behind me (at least I tried).   I started the pottery season early this year as I had a great show in 2017, made something new (garlic keeper) in December/January and it's now in a good home. I also made my 10 bowls for Great Bowls of...

Merry Christmas! I guess my plan fell through...was quite busy the past couple of months and it's already Christmas. Since we were away in most of November and the show was the first week of December, I spent many weekends in October making pieces for the show.  And the kiln was busy as well, good that October was cool so that the house wasn't too too warm from the firing.   New mug style and colours for 2018 Between making new pieces and some golfing, I still managed to do most of firings before the trip, which made it a bit easier when I was back from vacation. Our trip was great, we visited Hawaii and Tahiti.  The weather was mostly good, the food was awesome.  It was really hard to come back to reality. I came back one week before the show with most evenings were spent on the final touch for the show (including one glaze firing).  I was still pricing at midnight the night before the show, guess I was re...

Another month had gone by.  September was again a busy month.  The weather was great until September 21st when a couple of tornadoes swept through Ottawa and Gatineau.  It was my first time hearing about tornadoes touched down in Ottawa.  The tornadoes were so strong that they flew away many power lines and power plant caused a major power outage.  We were so lucky that power was out only for less than 24 hours but many people were out of power for days.    A combination of great weather (a lot more golfing) and the power outage, not much time was spent on pottery making.  However, I did do something pottery related (which might be a mistake or a motivation).  I signed up for the Christmas sale in December.  But the problem is that I will be away for 3 weeks in November!  This means in October (today is already October 6) I will have to spend much more time on pottery and prepping for the sale (the motivation 😅). Well, I star...

Welcome to September!  Can't believe the Summer months had gone by so quickly.  I can't really complain much as the Summer has been great.  I spent a lot of time outside which meant that no much pottery was produced. I did one thing though, I a new bucket of mysterious blue last weekend.  I must say that mixing glaze is my least favourite part of pottery making, but I did it with help from my husband which made the job a bit more enjoyable.😃  It still took us almost 2 hours to get it done! As today is the start of the labour day long weekend, hopefully I will make some new pieces. 😏

  The past July was a hot and dry (mostly) one in Ottawa, many days were 40 degrees and over with the humidity.  It was hard but I found an evening to do a bisque (1st) firing.  It was much needed as I were running out of shelf space. Bisque pieces   And during the very warm Canada Day long weekend, I decided to stay in the basement and made a few bowls. Handbuilt plates made during the month of July I went back to mid-porcelain clay again but this one took me 5 tries!  At least there was one that worked out (stage 1).  So, overall July was better than June.  However, it's already August 7 as I am writing, and I didn't make any new pieces yet even though it was a long weekend (instead I spent all 3 days golfing).  I am going to have some catching up to do this month.

Today is July 2 and a stat. holiday in Canada.  Summer is in full force, we have a heat wave here in Ottawa for the whole week.  The temperature with humidity is over 40 C.  It's not even 10am yet and here is our current temperature.  Guess turning on the kiln would be a bad idea. Just like I suspected last month that finding time to make new pieces would be difficult in the summer months...  However, I managed to find a few hours on one weekend, but only 2 pieces survived. Since it's a holiday today and it's quite warm out, guess staying in the basement and work on some new pieces would be ideal. Let's see how it goes for the month of July.