A lot of new things this week; both new items and new colorways and new blends!
1. Grey Spice soup mugs – new item in the shop, I’m bringing it in with two different colors (guessing at what might be popular) and custom orders are welcome!
2. Chocolate Covered Fruit in Tepper – an old Hanks colorways (one of my favorites) finally in stock.
3. Red Mars in Tepper – new colorway, and the start of my science-fiction based line. (OK, technically I guess Browncoat was the start, but at the time I made that I wasn’t thinking it was the start of something. Clearly it was — wait until you see what I have coming in May. May the 4th, to be exact. If you grok that, you’ll have a hint. If you don’t, you’ll have to wait.)
4. Watership Down soap set (already available at Wild Iris).
5. Jumbo mug in sand – renewed item
6. The 80s Have Called in Tepper – a popular old Hanks colorway finally in stock!
7. Light Blue Jumbo mug – renewed item
8. Pumpkin Spice soup mugs – new item in the shop
9. Soylent Green in Tepper – new colorway, also new in my science-fiction based line.
10. Dragonfly guest soaps in a new limited edition floral/herbal/citrus blends available at both Etsy and Wild Iris; a lavender blend set available at both Etsy and Wild Iris; and a baked goods set available at both Etsy and Wild Iris.
Whew! Busy week!
Tags: ceramics, HaldeCraft HandDyed, HaldeSoap, work
Looks can be deceiving.
For example, that looks like a lovely pile of ceramics, doesn’t it? Like a perfect kiln firing?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Both the brown and red yarn bowls need to be reglazed on the inside, and then re-fired; apparently I only put two coats, not three coats, on the inside and there are spots that aren’t finished and the unfinished spots look like they might snag yarn.
See those three yarn mugs on the left? Two green, and one red? All custom orders. Except that it’s supposed to be two red and one green.
Sigh.
See that plate in the middle? I’ve been working on a set of dishes since the beginning of November. Everything is finished except for the one plate. I’ve made it three times, and the glaze has exploded off the side all three times. I’m glad that the sixth person in my customer’s family is still a baby and doesn’t need a plate yet, but I hope to FSM that I’ve got this worked out by the time he’s old enough to need it.
:headdesk:
See those two brown mugs? The glaze did something funky on the handle of one of them, and I need to put more glaze on it and re-fire that as well.
See the green-footed mugs? I used Neon Green on the feet. Last time I made them I used Lime Green. I was supposed to use Lime Green this time. I did not.
But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
I didn’t take a picture on Thursday; I thought about it a couple of times but all I was doing was wrapping soap, and I’d think about how to artfully arrange my work to get a pretty picture and then I’d get sidetracked. So then I didn’t put up a post yesterday about what I did on Thursday, because, well, “worked a lot and forgot to take a picture” pretty much sums it up. Except that I did go to knitting on Thursday night and got to hang with Mariana and Sonya, and Diane swung by to pick up an order and it was great to see her and reconnect (and her daughter C., who I first met when she was… five? six? IS SO TALL! And gorgeous, and tough as shit, but that’s a given, if you know Diane.) ANYWAY. So here’s my photo from Friday, when I mixed up the hand-lotion base I’ll be using. I’ve got it now divided into the four initial fragrances I’ll be using (do you want to know now? Or be surprised in a few weeks?) and while I don’t have any in the small bottles yet, I’ve gotten a lot farther than I was in having it ready.
Remember how I was talking the other week about my love for cuckoo clocks? And some of you may know I also have a love for really intricate gingerbread houses. So how about an Edible Gingerbread Cuckoo clock?! I KNOW RIGHT?!?!? I just peed a little.
I also just banged my head into the wall a little, because I opened the kiln and a custom piece that I’ve made four times now didn’t turn out. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck!!!!
Grr; argh.
And on that note, I think I’m going to go pour some ceramics, clean my ceramic studio, and maybe finish up the audio book I’m listening to.
Tags: my cool friends, ramblings, work
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Unlike the second book, which you could pick up without having read the first, I would not read this one unless you’ve read at least the second book. This is the culmination of the story; mysteries are revealed, threads are wrapped up, lives are changed. I found the ending to be fitting for the series; it did not leave me wanting more, but it did leave me thinking that had the author lived, there might have been more stories to come in the future. Perhaps none quite so dark as what this series was about, though.
View all my reviews
Tags: book review, books, mystery
Yarn: HaldeCraft HandDyed in Chocolate Covered Cherries
Pattern: Yoga/Dance Socks by Charlene Schurch and Beth Parrott
Notes: These took, like, NO time!
Tags: HaldeCraft HandDyed, Knitting
Yesterday was quite productive. I wish I could have taken a photo of the yarn I dyed, but it is for February sock club and I didn’t want to spoil people. So here’s a picture of my temporarily red hair instead. I love how the gray and still-bleached parts look lighter, almost reddish-blonde. Anyway. It’s weird to see my hair as mostly just one color again!
Last night after dinner we watched an 80′s movie that neither one of us had seen before, but that Rhea keeps telling me I’ve got to see – The Goonies. Well. Now I can say I’ve seen it. I’m not going to probably ever have the urge to watch the whole thing again, but it was cute. Everyone looked so young! Young Sean Astin, before he was the “fat nasty hobbit.” I think I would have liked it a lot more thirty years ago. At the time it came out, I was 16, and remember thinking that I was too old/too much a girl to relate to a movie about 12-year-old boys, and that still mostly holds true but I could appreciate it from a nostalgic “isn’t that sweet” point of view.
OK; time to move on with my day. I have a little more glazing to do, a little more soap to wrap, laundry needs to be done, etc etc etc.
Yesterday was a throwback to the start of the year; hanging out with good friends and eating great food. Lynn came up from “down South” (and I say it like it’s a million miles away but it’s like, an hour) and helped me to wrap soap (a day off for her, and a big help to me) and we had lunch at Chopstix, dinner at Emiliano’s, and in between, knitting at Wild Iris with ciders from Cafe Colette. Definitely a day of local tasties! Damn, I just remembered I forgot to buy that last strawberry/balsamic white chocolate at the Cafe. Poo! Well, hopefully it will still be there Thursday, or more will be there. Mmmmmmm.
Anyway. Yesterday! Fun! It was great to see Lynn and catch up on what she’s doing and working on, and to just hang for a while. She has some great knitting going on right now, one of those mitered-square blankets and it is ginormous and beautiful! What a great use for scrap pieces of yarn.
…aaaaaand, that’s about it. I have a lot to do today so I’d best wrap this up. Expect many soap updates in the shop today — I’ll be listing four sets of guest soaps on both the Etsy shop and the Wild Iris Marketplace (same soaps, available two different places). And I have glazing to do, and yarn to dye. But I don’t have to go anywhere today, so I’m going to be all squirrelly and crafty and shit. Yes, I will have pants on (so that my legs don’t get covered in dye and glaze).
Tags: Gainesville, my cool friends, work
I originally meant to take this in the early morning, so the sun would be behind it (get it? The sun? Behind the sun? So it would look like a little sun? In the sun? Meta!) But I forgot, and ultimately think this one turned out fine. Besides, I think to show off the shiny more I’d have to break out my camera-camera, not just my phone-camera (which is what I take most of my daily photos with these days).
Yesterday was spent firing the kiln and cleaning the house – not only is Lynn coming up today to help me wrap soap (and eat good food – forecast calls for lunch at Chopstix and dinner at Emilianos) but we’re getting the house appraised today because we’re trying to refinance. So mostly I puttered yesterday, going through small piles of things and putting things where they belong and sweeping and whatnot. Tim completely cleaned off the back porch when he got home; I do love a clean back porch. When I unload the kiln later I’ll try to take a wide shot to show off how empty it looks.
Aaaaaaaaand, that’s all I got this morning. I need to rush off and sweep the front porch, open the kiln and inspect pieces, and do a few last-minute bits of straightening. You crazy kids have a fun day!
Treasury: Dragon + Fly
Treasury: Retro Gifts
Treasury: I Heart Coffee Browns
Treasury: Espresso
Treasury: Retro Red
Behold, my earrings! Before we painted the bathroom, they used to hang in the window (not unlike this); but they got taken down for painting, and when I went to put them back up I thought “wow, that netting is really dusty, I should pop it into the wash.” And that meant taking off all of my earrings, so you know I got right on that. HAHAHAHA. Finally last week Tim was all, “you gonna hang these?” and I explained what was taking me so long (“it is in a small box in the closet in the bathroom and I only think about it when I see it and usually then I am about to get in the shower so yeah”) and he took them all off while watching TV. I popped the netting in my next load of laundry, and… now it’s back up. So. Yeah. That only took seven months.
Sigh.
Anyway. Moving on.
One thing I’m discovering about making a schedule and sticking to it is that I’m stressing a lot less over things not getting done. At the same time, I’m getting a lot more things finished. Does that make sense? For instance, Sunday is OFFICE DAY. And that means that during the week I stress less about there being random piles of paper around that need to be filed, because I know I’m going to get to it on Sunday. And when I do get to it on Sunday, it takes me less time to finish it than I thought (probably because there’s a week of receipts and not seven months worth) and then I feel accomplished, and done with something. Saturday when I loaded up the kiln with greenware, I felt like I finished it and was ready to fire with much less stress than in November or December, even though I worked on it the same amount of hours I would have then — just spread out over two days instead of crammed into one day. CRAZY.
Tags: ramblings
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