Friday, January 20th

The problem with taking pictures of white shiny things is that they look very flat and white and shiny. I tried to soften it with a filter, but … meh. Clearly I am going to have to work to make the lotion look enticing! This is the massage lotion, already in use at West Family Chiropractic, if I may just name-drop there for a second. Hand lotion will be made in another couple of weeks, and both will probably start showing up on the Etsy shop and at Wild Iris in February.

Yesterday I fired the kiln, and as it cooled quickly I just cracked it open; the Marys all came out, but another yellow bird mug had a suicide. Now  I have a pair of completely unusable yellow mugs with birds on their butts! I need to brainstorm on something else I can use them for. Some sort of hanging birdfeeder-type thing. Or a hanging planter. I know there’s something I can use them for, I just need to figure out what (besides, I mean, marking them up to twice the price and calling them “art”).

In addition to winding yarn, making lotion, and firing the kiln yesterday, I also started a new afghan. It’s the same pattern I used for the Giant Pink Afghan (hunh… looks like I never wrote a post about that… research shows me that that was just a couple of weeks after the Giant Blog Hose of 2009 and about a week before Uncle Joe got sick… so here’s just a picture of it and can someone remind me later to write a blog post about it because the story is really kind of funny, k, thnx) and the Giant Green Afghan – both of which were also made with handspun – but this one will not have a carry-along yarn like the other two did. Just handspun. This one also won’t be as big; I’m going for more of a lap-blanket kind of size than a full-on afghan. Maybe three feet across instead of six (which means I’m about a third of the way there already). I noticed when arranging my stash the other day that while I have a lot of handspun marked for me to sell, I have a lot that I’ve been keeping but not working with. Why have I not worked with it? I keep thinking “I’m going to use this for something special”… well, go ahead and make something special, then, self; or sell it. Or gift to friends.

Right, then. Today? Pouring some greenware, cleaning dry greenware and loading up the kiln for firing on Monday, and later tonight going to the grand opening of a friend’s sewing studio. I promise to shower in between getting dirty from working with ceramics and going to the opening. I may even, if I remember to shave my legs, wear one of the skirts I’ve sewn. I wonder if I could pair that with a handknit top? Who would look like the crazy crafty lady then, I ask you? HMMMMMMMMM?