The Salad Days

This is probably the piece of pottery I am most proud of so far. It's a bean pot, with a lid. The lid fits perfectly, and the glaze looks really awesome in person. It's really hard to get a good photo - the glaze is so shiny that pictures never really come out. But trust me, it's cool. :)

I finished and hung the decorations I had been working on in the previous post. We're pretty happy with how they came out! And it has definitely made a difference on the audio problems we were having in there. It's still not perfect, but there is definitely a significant improvement.

Our living room has a high ceiling, which leads to lots of bare sections of flat wall up high. Because of this, when we watch the TV in there the audio is always sort of muddy - just too many reflective surfaces and echoes. In an attempt to break up those flat planes with some texture, I'm making these decorations for the wall above the window in the second picture. They're made of lots of scraps and offcuts of hardwood that I've been unable to throw away over the years. They're also lots of different thicknesses, which should help break up the reflections even more. Once I get them finished and installed we'll see if it helps!

Finally had a batch of glazed pots come out of the kiln and I was happy with every piece. Usually there are at least a few duds or mistakes in every load - but this time they all looked great!

Sean asked me to make him a bedside table so he's got somewhere to charge his phone at night, have a lamp, etc. I made this out of red oak, and in a mid-century modern style. That's not normally the style of furniture I build, but it was a fun change of pace. He likes sort of a 'minimalist' look in his room, and I thought this style would go well with that.

I found a nice glaze combo I really like - if I remember right (I have it written down, but not near at hand at the moment) it's Amaco's Toasted Sage over Laguna's Turkish Amber. The sage becomes a cool blue-green, and the combo with the amber leads to some nice blending effects. The one in the front has the sage on both the inside and the outside, and the one immediately behind it has the sage just on the inside (and a little bit on the rim).

Carter's collection of books has started to outgrow her existing bookcase, so she asked me to make her another one to handle the overflow. I let her choose all the design details. For the wood, she went with hickory. And for the top, she chose some really cool tiles. They look almost like a sliver mother-of-pearl or abalone, which really echoes the grain of the wood.

I made these drawer organizers for our 'junk drawers' a few weeks ago. They're made from some cherry scraps I had left over from another project, and are two-tiered - the top tier can slide around on the bottom tier, for even more storage. Working out great so far!

I've done a whole bunch of test tiles so far - and it's a good thing I did! Out of all of these tests, there are probably only about a half-dozen that I really like and would use on a full-size piece. I've got another batch of test tiles in the kiln right now, which needs to cool down for a few more hours before I can open it. Hopefully there are some good ones in there, too!