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Focus on Fiber Festival

Sauder Village

Archbold, Ohio

10am - 5pm

Saturday, June 25th

It's been a busy couple months here getting ready for the Sauder Village Focus on Fiber Festival June 25th. When not throwing & trimming bowls or glazing them or firing kilns, I've been building display shelves and updating the studio and working on new knitting patterns.

Because there just isn't enough to do in a day. ;oP

I'm hoping to get some new pics up in the next week... Here is a teaser of what I'll have in my booth at Sauder's...

My regular glazes:

Brown and Almond

Blue and Oatmeal

Purple and Oatmeal

Brown and Rafia

I also have a lovely matt brown, but don't have a pic of it yet.

And I've been testing a few new glazes, but only have a pic of this one:

Chive and Almond

And I've been experimenting with some yarn troughs, for those who like to knit with lots of balls of yarn at one time.

And something new and fun, sheep salt & pepper shakers!

And and and.....

Progress!

What I started with - 42 balls of clay:

What I ended up with: 42 more yarn bowls.

I finished the bowls on the top left shelf Saturday morning. The not-a-yarn-bowl rectangular thing on the 2nd shelf is a bonsai pot for my cousin.

About 40 bowls left for me to make. Getting there!

Ode to my wheel

You spin my clay right round

right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
You spin my clay right round,
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round

After a yarn bowl I donated for a door prize at a knitter's retreat weekend at Sauder Village caused a bit of a frenzy, the event organizers invited me to be a vendor at their Focus On Fiber Festival in June. In preparation for that, I spent the weekend throwing yarn bowls.

63 of them. Which looks like this:

I spent pretty much spent both days of the weekend down in my studio. :dreamysigh: Except for 1 quick errand and a call to my mom I didn't talk to anyone except Brian and the boys. And Brian was working and sleeping a lot, so I didn't even talk to him much! We've had so much stuff (of the social variety) going on the last 4-5 weekends it was glorious to just be able to stay home and be a hermit and make pots.

Anyway. I'm going to drop off the last 2 yarn bowls I have at Yarn Cravin' tomorrow, and hopefully will have the first batch of these bowls through the process this weekend.

What a load

Generally when I order clay it takes a couple months to get to my supplier's studio. I try to time ordering clay so I'm all but out when it arrives because of space constraints. This time, though, the clay came in in about a week. Surprise!

We've had a bit of a full schedule here lately though, so I wasn't able to pick the clay up till yesterday.

20 50lb boxes = 1,000 lbs:

Before I left the house Brian reminded me to back up to the basement back door, which opens to the landing of the basement stairs, so we wouldn't have as many steps to carry the clay down. The thought that the ground might be a little soft from all the rain we've had the last couple days cruised through my mind, but B said to pull right up, so I figured pffththt, it'll be ok.

Well. There were issues in the middle of the yard:

Yeah. Not going to be backing up to the door. Got stuck a good 20ft from it. Heh.

So B carried the 20 50-lb boxes (one at a time) from the jeep to the back door, where I met him on the landing and carried each box downstairs into my studio, and stacked them + the 350lbs I still had under my work table.

Even without the weight of the clay still had to put the jeep in 4-wheel to get unstuck, which left this in the yard...

Brian was standing on the deck looking at it, and I got out of the car and looked at it and looked at him, and we both started laughing. It's annoying, yah, but... we're looking at it from the point that the grass back there had issues anyway, and this will force us to do something about it.

When we got inside someone desperately wanted to be out...

Aaaaaaand he is much happier when he is out sunbathing.

Spring Events

I have a number of things coming up this spring. Actually, I have something going on every month through August. Here is info about the first few (if you click on the photo it will blow up so you can read it):

Teh kewt

Just finished pinching these out. I'll bore holes behind the ears for salt & pepper once they firm up a bit.

They make me giggle. And yes, they have tails.

Shelves, Glorious Shelves

In the beginning.... that sounds like this is going to be really profound, huh? It's really not. But it is a good family story.

When I first got my studio set up, I wasn't doing many shows, so didn't need a lot of space for pots to sit while waiting for the next step or to dry.

Before

Over the last few years I've added on more and more shows and shops and galleries, and started selling online, and wow. Space became a hot commodity, and I could only work on so many pots at a time. Which is really frustrating when I'm in serious production mode and need to crank pots out when I have time to make them.

I've been lusting after the adjustable shelves at The 577 Foundation for years, but kept forgetting to talk about them to the person who could make them happen. Which is where Brian comes in. November or December last year, my dad was asking Brian for gift ideas for my birthday, which is in January. Brian has been listening to me complain about the shelf situation for a long time, and knew that my dad would be the person to do something about it, and suggested shelving for my birthday.

I gave Dad a bunch of pics of 577's shelves, and measurements, and he went at it. Yesterday he and my mom came to set them up:

After

Each shelf board is half the depth of the shelf, so I can adjust to accommodate both height and depth. It needs to be painted, but I made good progress on that today.

Outside of a nap (I'm still sick) I spent the entire day in the basement making pots. And had a big, dopy grin on my face every time I pulled something off the wheel and put it on the shelf. SO much fun to have tools that work.

Lots of little happy dances are going on over here. Big, big thanks to my dad, for all his support and contributions to my studio. I wouldn't be anywhere near as productive without the things he has built for me.

It's Race Day!

Well, first I'll start with yesterday. We drove over yesterday afternoon. Once I got Gustav settled in Cleveland I drove to Hudson to meet some friends for dinner at Luchitas:

A self portrait with Maria

Self portrait with Andrea

We 3

Outside

The lights below the Valley View Bridge were pretty on the way to Kelly's house

The starting area. In my rush to grab all my stuff (it was very cold so I was layered up like the Michelin man) and meet Maria I forgot the camera, so I don't have the actual start of the race. Pffththt.

The next couple pics are taken from the same position as the flag pic above, I just rotated around. Very hilly.

Gustav came along for the ride and was a bundle of energy.

To (try to) burn off some of that energy, and to kill some time, we hiked around the Kendel Lake trail

As we approached the far side of the lake (Truxell Rd corner) we could see some runners crossing. I was only expecting to see people at the 12 ish mile mark, so I was excited to find another spot to watch. By the time we got to that corner either most everyone had passed, or there was a big gap between runners, so we continued on around the lake & planned to stop here on the 2nd loop around.

Still on the lake trail, something has been chewing on this tree

2nd loop around the lake, Truxell/Kendel lake corner again. Shortly after we arrived the lead runners came through. My camera has a bit of a delay, and these guys were whipping through, so most of my up close pics are mostly of their behinds. (Ok, yes they have nice behinds, but I didn't do it on purpose.) I just couldn't get ready fast enough, and these guys were speedy. They looked like they were having a ton of fun, and made it look so effortless, but if what they were running was anything like my trek around the lake, it was NOT easy going. These runners - all of them, both distances - are really amazing.

Self portrait while we wait for more runners

Maaaaareeeeeeaaaaaaaah! I just saw a girl named Maaareeeeaaaaaaaaah!

Here's our girl!

Posing while she pets the Beastie

An unexpected Maria sighting. I was on my way back to the finish area, and she came around this clump of trees on her way to the Salt Run trail.

There she goes

Standing in the same spot as above, only turned around looking up at the finish area on top of the Sound of Music hill

Lloyd at the finish line, waiting to greet runners

The smilie hats! Kris arrived for her volunteer shift early enough that we could chat for a few minutes.

Here she comes again! (when she's runnin' 'neath the sunny sky) Maria finishing the first loop. I left shortly after she passed through here.

He moved just as I took this pic, but someone's head was filling the rear view mirror for most of the drive.

Poor Jack was severely upset by our absence and wouldn't eat (even peanut butter) or do anything. Dh had to drag him to get him outside to pee. Jack moped the entire time we were gone. Poor pathetic neglected little boy. (can you hear the sarcasm?)

As energetic as he was, someone has crashed.