Monday Majolica #12

Look what I found!  I don’t know how this got into a box of stuff completely unrelated to pottery, but I was very glad to find it.

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I originally made six of these. I thought the missing goblets were all broken and long gone. I was so happy to find this one.

As always, stay safe, and thanks for stopping by………….*s*

 

Endless Fall

Started this post and never finished or posted.  This is another shot of my deck rail with the petunias I grew from saved seed. That’s a double hibiscus on the end. There are two more that aren’t in the picture.

I am going to bring a bunch of them in to winter over in my sunroom.  The blooms peter out in December so I cut them back. If all goes according to plan they will start flowering March.

 As I have mentioned before, I move upstairs and do pottery glazing and painting when my studio gets too chilly to heat.  This year I am trying to put some thought into it rather a spur of the moment harem-scarum  move.

I’ve been using my SAD lamp.  Turns out the kitties love the warmth from it. I was going to buy one more to keep in the sunroom.  I may have to buy two.

We are still enjoying one of our long warm falls. The leaves on the swamp maples are barely beginning to turn. We will be covering the pool this week, before the leaves really start coming down.  I hate to do it as I love to be out there even though it’s no longer swimming weather. (And I wonder every year how I swam in the ocean with delight as a youngster, when we thought 70º was warm.) Closing the pool signifies the real end of summer.

Toes crossed everyone enjoys the long week end. There willprobably be all sorts of goings on on Federal Hill in Providence and probably Westerly, big Italian heritage in both places.

As always, stay safe, and thanks for stopping by…………..*s*

Majolica Monday #11 (BLTN Edition)

These are some of the first goblets I ever made way back in 1985-'86 when I first became entranced with majolica.  I originally worked with a white clay body called Newton White.  It came from Cutter Ceramics after they bought out Newton Pottery which was before my time.  This was a high talc, low fire white.  I loved working with it as it was easy to throw and hand build with.  Ultimately I changed to a terra cotta body because I liked the way my glazes looked over the darker body.  The glaze was an old Val Cushing low fire. I loved the way it felt but it was so soft that it chipped easily.

 This was originally a set of six with stars, heart, and rings being the other three. 

The cuttings are from a sweet potato.  The provide a touch of greenery all winter. I am also going to bring in petunias to winter over.

All this started because I have been getting my sunroom ready to bring in plants. In the process I have cleaned up a storage area on the deck.  As I have said before, It's amazing the forgotten stuff you find when you clean up forgotten areas. 

As always, stay safe, and thanks for stopping by.......*s*

 

Majolica Monday #10

Here’s another experiment with paper clay.  It’s a wall planter, that will be once fired.

 

I’m not sure if I would truly call it majolica as it will have a clear coat over the glaze.  This is Spectrum #200 Satin series.  The clear gives a nice depth to the colors.

As for being majolica, perhaps not in the true sense, but close enough….I guess….maybe…..we’ll see, grasshopper……we’ll see……. 

As always, stay safe, and thanks for stopping by……………*s*

Majolica Monday #9

I’ve missed several Mondays, due to storms and life in general so here are two for this week.

The mermaid is a homemade paper clay experiment.  I used some fine dryer lint mixed with my clay. It was pleasant to work with and very responsive, but it tends to dry out quickly. I am going to continue with this, particularly thinking of some hanging planters for next summer.

Below is the final third of the mermaid planter. This one includes all the baby mermaids.

 As always, stay safe, and thanks for stopping by…………..*s*

WELL! THAT WAS FUN!

Never rains but it pours.....and pours.....and pours......

Just before we prepped for Henri we discovered a rear strut on the Subaru had broken and was gouging a canyon in the tire.  Needless to say we stopped driving.  Fortunately we were well prepared for Henri.  We lost power for about thirty-six hours. The gas tank was full so we ran the power inverter to cool the small fridge, radio, lights, and DVD. (Started rewatching Treme, which only seemed appropriate.)

Here is KikiLaSois playing with a pencil, just because she is still so cute at about fifteen years.

The internet, cable, etc. were another story. Lines were on the ground. Power was restored to the top of the hill Wednesday afternoon.  Once it was established that the problem was indeed between the house and the street they had a service truck out here Friday morning.  Power was restored and we were happy.

Wednesday night the rain began again!  And rained........hard all night and most of Thursday.  I stopped measuring at six inches.

It has been lovely having a green summer, knowing that water will not be a problem this year.

Meanwhile, I had the car towed. Had to get it reregistered as due to Covid and arcane ways of the DMV the registration lapsed.  As it was more than ninety days I had to go in person which required a reserved time.  This is not as bad as it sounds. There was a wait past my arrival time, but with check in that was fine.  Once inside it went very quickly. There were no melt downs or people going ballistic and having to be escorted from the building. Toes crossed they keep something of the sort after this is over!

So my anxiety and ability to make mountains out of molehills was for naught! The hardest part will be remembering my new plate number. I had the old one for thirty-five years.

May you always live in interesting times.  I can do with a little less interest for a while, thank-you!

As always, stay safe, and thanks for stopping by..............*s*

Majolica Monday #8

More Merry Mermaids

 As always, stay safe, and thanks for stopping by………..*s*