swatches, or: Thanksgiving-Break-Eve Mitraillette with knitting and other pics mixed in

Why oh why did I, not having had a bagel in ages, get a yucky dry one at the library coffee shop instead of walking the extra 5 minutes to Einstein's in the union? The more lamentable since this is my first gluteny food in a while (altho this week of course I'll be tossing various dietary habits out the window, yummy Thanksgiving food is worth a few days of Templeton-the-Rat Syndrome).

 Blocking my old stitch-sampl-y scarf that I made in Cleveland winter of 2001 (I think?)

After 202 this a.m. my other two Tuesday classes are just labs and I told them attendance was optional today. We're watching Holy Grail, ostensibly for the French châteaufort scene, mostly because it keeps coming up in the 003 section for some reason and two of them had never seen it. The other section (the one person who attended) opted to watch it, too... even tho I gave him the choice of leaving early instead (I think he didn't realize today was optional anyway). Says something about the Pythons' lasting popularity, I think.

I get more compliments on this thing and really I think of it as kind of a crap piece that happens to be fun colors and warm. It was just a series of stitch samples with self-striping yarn - maybe one evening's work?

I really am going to work today, too. Am almost done grading the latest 202 test, then will just see what else I can get done before 4 or so, which is my mental quitting time. Ha ha of course I meant the time I had in mind for heading home but it probably really will be my mental quitting time in many ways.

 My favorite stitch sampling/practice thing now is the same as most people's: dishcloths. Get your Christmas stockings ready!

Love having the office to myself (Susie Antisocial) altho someone must have been here working during my first lab. I came back to find the thermostat set on SEVENTY-FIVE.This happens regularly actually, I just hadn't shared my flabbergastedness about it here yet. Also I know for a fact that it's more than one officemate who puts it there. I'm glad I don't have their electric bill if they keep their homes that hot; possibly they keep them cooler and so want to soak up heat here at school. Energy saving, schmenergy saving!

As usual my photography lighting skills are outdone by knitpics but you still get the idea.

Will take the turkey breast out of the freezer tonight; since it's just for home it doesn't have to be cooked a certain day. Tomorrow I'll focus on the cranberry sauce and whatever else I take, which I have yet to decide. The problem with lots of UU stuff is even tho we're all easy going about whatever people want to believe religion-wise, we are pretty picky in other ways, so I was - shall we say - strongly encouraged last night to bring an appetizer, "perhaps something cheese-oriented." Um... OK... I know they're thinking something like a cheeseball which I simply cannot bring myself to make, mostly because I really don't like them and whatever I make I want to be happy about its being a part of the dinner... Then I was thinking about my favorite entrées in France (we use that word for the main dish now in American but it really is what it says, the door into the meal). My absolute favorite is cantaloupe and prosciutto, but (a) I'm still feeling iffy about canteloupe consumption and (b) prosciutto is way more expensive here. Runners-up are grated carrots and raisins in vinaigrette, or possibly a cucumber and onion salad with crême fraîche... I love these but others will not see them as "appetizers." Hmmm. I'm seriously considering ignoring the whole appetizer "suggestion" and just bringing something else... which takes me back to the original question... 

Last day of wet clay tonight at the studio (in the current class calendar). I kind of want to do either a big slab-work oven dish or possibly a coil bowl, since I haven't done one in so long. On the other hand I should probably throw since I probably won't be back on the wheel for a while. (It's the end of our class in another few sessions and I doubt I'll be very regular at Open Studio until after finals.) I have quite a few very decent pieces this time that are waiting on either trimming/bisque fire or glazing; of course can't count on anything until after the glaze-firing so cross your fingers...

I am bound and determined to get the long-dreamt-of couch cover made over winter break. Extra motivation is the fact that I'm hosting our circle dinner in January, plus I'm Sick To Death of how it looks now. Cover it as I may, some of the black original cover always shows somewhere and since it's both black and super-cat-hair-attract-y, it is guaranteed whatever bit of it that's visible will look awful. If the couch cover turns out as I'm planning it will cover all the black no problem and I think I'm going to include a few inches on each side that would go down to the floor, with strategically (for the cats) and aesthetically (for me) placed slits... The fabric is a glorious medium sheen-y green with some gold and some sea-green threads in the pattern. Doubtless HOV will be hosting some pics.

Jessica made me a washcloth of this stitch ages ago and I had been itching to try it, so above is my first ballband dishcloth, and below is my second. I do not know why that is its name. Someone else will have to google it.

Wondrously long email from Tracy-chan today - I might scare her mailbox and reply in kind via snail... Stranger things have happened...



So four of us are working on this solstice piece that we had been planning to do with the whole women's ensemble but we decided there wasn't time to polish it - at least not with our once-a-week practices and people's different learning curves as to music notation and/or just plain paying attention to dynamics and cutoffs, etc. Anyway we practiced it at my house last Friday and are going to do some more to it this Friday - we sang it for Elaine (our director) last night and it is sounding Really Good. There is a danger of offending other ensemble members tho if we actually sing it for a service so that is up in the air for the moment. Either way we are rocking it. I was going to link an online example of the piece but all the YouTube recordings of it are waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too slow.

 And then we have... ENTRELAC! Above is the start of the second row of a piece. 

I wish I could just sing and knit and cook and watch movies and play with the cats and write letters and read books and paddle and quilt and collage and hike and play piano and ride horses and travel and cycle and rescue strays and drink wine or margaritas all the time. Anyone have any ideas yet of how to do any or all of these things and make a living, too?

End of the second row. This stuff is so addicting - you just keep talking yourself into one more swatch. Knitting is like that anyway, you always want to "just do one more row." But entrelac is built on these little patches, so it's especially hard to make yourself quit mid-swatch, and at the end of each one the compulsion to do another is almost always much stronger than I.

I am already starting to stress about the summer cat/housecare situation. At this point I don't even know if the program is a go - 6 of the last 10 students to talk to me about it have since decided to do the Belgium program. It used to be Paris was the default for minors or students who just wanted to take some more French (short summer term as you know and only 6 credits), and majors did Belgium (spring semester-long program, way more FR credits). But now they are offering more non-FR courses in the Belgium program so there are even minors doing it. Whatever students I do end up with will likely be a majority of people just finishing their FR requirements with the program -  more interest in FR and France than the average student but the group will not have as high a French level overall - something I've found is pretty detrimental at times. So there.

All this notwithstanding the fact that even tho I wouldn't be able to visit friends, etc., a big piece of me would not be very disappointed to stay here in the summer. More broke but at least somewhat rested doesn't sound half bad. And no need for the cat/housesitter...

I REALLY hate working ends of yarn into a piece. Anytime I'm doing something with more than one color I far prefer it if I can just work the new color in along with the old but I decided it would make the edges of the patches look too muddy. Consequently this particular dishcloth still has all its tails.

The 003s have talked me into making crêpes for them for next Monday. I have no idea how they did this.

All creations must have the feline stamp of approval - the yarn itself is almost always subjected to numerous strength tests by Miss Lucy. Not sure what Sammers is testing here.

I might take the rest of the grading to Moe Joe's. Blogging aside (since it's tantamount to the prime directive or something) I am way too distracted here at the office today. Plus unless I have busy work to do like this morning, it's too distracting to be here by myself. When there are others here I'm better at sticking to work; a worker bee vibe of sorts gets in the air when we're all sitting around being industrious. Used to be I could work best in here alone, but no more. I really don't want to have all that crap home with me over break tho even if it's all completed and sitting in a corner... Also there is a chance MJ's is closed since they often forget they have non-student customers and so frequently are closed during school breaks. Someday maybe I'll live somewhere again that is more than just a college town.

I like it in a single color just as much (more if you factor in that it entails only one yarn). I need to figure out why my edge row stitches are so big and loose, but otherwise it isn't bad. You can't zone out as much on this as you can on other stitch patterns, but with practice you don't have to concentrate quite so hard or keep checking your directions. I started a really pretty self-striping scarf for myself in entrelac as a practice piece so it can become a little more automatic. I'll have to post it later; it's on hiatus while I work on Christmas stuff.

I told the students as I was cuing the video about how Sammers used to be really interested in the menu of this particular DVD. Otherwise he has never paid attention to the TV (altho many times was drawn in by things on the computer monitor, strangely). Anyway here is 2/3-grown Sam from Fall '04 trying to catch Grail menu graphics. This is probably on the blog somewhere else but whatever.

Dang it, as I look I see my old Skyflakes cracker tin and realize I haven't seen it in ages. It might have been a victim of the moving/packing purge. I really hope not. Guess we know what I'm going to be looking for when I get home...

Composition grading is the bane of my existence. Truly.

 Fun comparison... full grown Sam sometime later with the same TV.

Once in a while my jadedness goes away long enough to come up with a good idea in the classroom. Although whether or not the students run with it and fulfill its potential is out of my control. Of course it helps when Real Life gives you inspiration. This time it was because of the 1400-year-old fallen sequoia out west that is crossing a park trail. I had heard a news report about it and supposedly the park service was taking online suggestions as to what to do (tunnel through it for the visitor path, cut it up and sell it, slice out a piece so the path could continue that way, etc.) Our current 202 chapter is about the environment. The students had watched a film about someone planting trees in France and were supposed to discuss it. As a followup I had them split into groups and pretend they were the committee in charge of deciding about the redwood. One group out of 8 (i.e. all the groups in all three classes) actually had good ideas and backed them up. The others phoned it in as usual. I surprised myself by remaining steadfast in my opinion of its being a good idea.

 

So as not to neglect the Boo. I'm too lazy to undo the eye reflections but isn't this a beautiful picture of her? From last week. Not to mention the fact that she's actually holding still. Sparklebug extraordinaire.

two glasses of wine, a huge bowl of curry rice and veggies, and about 15 grapes later...

Weird day, as all Mondays... I dread them and then once I'm at school and things are falling into place I feel stupid for having dreaded it so badly, then I have a few hours of something in between being terrified I won't have time to get all my work done and just wanting the time to pass faster so my classes and Monday will be over, then once my afternoon classes (three in a row) start in I'm OK and the momentum carries me, then choir, which is generally a pretty good way to end the day before coming home. Since then... refer to the title plus add to that (for this evening anyway): petting the kits, wrestling with Sammers, and watching the David Tennant Hamlet.

But all that is completely irrelevant. Here are the two latest pots (as I write this Sammers is in the kitchen playing with the pictures on the wall - never a dull moment...) one of which I love, the other I'm fairly indifferent to (and no that's not any kind of false modesty)...

Here's the indifferent one. Same goes here as with what I said before - I'm glad Erin had us do the stuff she had us do but I'm not ecstatic about the pieces. Our required work for the class:
1 pitcher
1 closed form pot
1 lidded pot
1 teapot

Of those, one was required to have a pulled handle and one was required to show at least some slab-building. When we got to the teapot I had yet to do any slab building and for some reason the night I started this I was feeling weirdly self-conscious on the wheel plus was just kind of pooped and a little less-than-social so I decided to start my teapot with slabs (slab building takes one into a slightly different area of the studio than where the wheels are). It kind of snowballed from there and the pot ended up entirely slab-built. I hardly ever do slabs so I'm really proud of it from a technical standpoint - I did a really good job with all the joins, etc. (altho the joins between the spout and the rest of the pot had a couple of iffy spots but ended up fine) - even tho this pot is decidedly not Me.

The glaze just made it even weirder - we all tried this glaze on a few things this time but it did a really strange thing in this firing and ended up basically Baby Shit Brown with a few flecks of green when it usually fires much darker (deep deep almost black brown) with a green iridescence to it all over. But so much for that.

It holds one large mug's worth or two medium cups' worth. I didn't do the strainer treatment inside in the clay but went ahead and cut a hole in the body that is the same size and shape as the base of the spout. In general I think those strainy openings for teapots are pointless. You have to make the holes pretty big so that glaze won't plug them up, which makes them too big to do any real straining. I'd much rather just use a tea strainer.

I do love the handle - every single thing about it - I love the join of the horizontal part to the vertical part and I love how I split the slab to join it to the pot in both places. I also really think my little triangle on top is Quite Inspired. It gives a nice thumb rest for pouring stability but also if you look closely you'll see that the one point extends over the back of the lid - which keeps the lid from tipping out as you pour. It works quite well.

Below is my closed form from the class. I really love this pot and keep imagining it with some harissa (hot sauce for couscous etc.) in it or something. The glazing is a reenactment of the glazing from the lidded pot from before which ran like crazy and basically messed up the entire piece, but this time I was careful to glaze pretty thin plus someone had watered down the glaze a bit.

I'm kind of addicted to closed forms now - anytime something starts going wonky you can almost always make it into a closed form, then cut a lid out and it's the easiest lid to make, too, altho you have to be pretty careful when you cut and the pot always ends up quite thick-walled due to having closed it in on itself and compressed a lot. I trimmed tons off of this one.

This is my new favorite kind of lid handle - it's particularly good for closed form lids b/c they are so thick there is plenty of clay to dig the handle out of, but also I really hate making handles for lids.

So there. I have one more closed form that should be out of the bisque fire by tomorrow night and I'll be back on the wheel tomorrow so we'll see what develops.

I have the hiccups.

pots!

As promised and as forewarned... recent pottery fun...

This one was one of my leftover pieces of bisqueware from Aub*rn - I love making handle-less pitchers. This one is perfect for one dinner's worth of salad dressing or something. Might use it for the harissa in January when Circle Dinner is at my house and I plan to make couscous. I'm not crazy about this red (we call the glaze "burgundy" - hmph) but it's OK.

Another leftover from Aub*rn. Probably my most symmetrical bowl ever. Some glaze ran but little enough that I could grind off the drips without too much trouble.

You can see below a little piece of kiln shelf wash fell into the bowl and fused with the glaze - this happens on occasion. Thank goodness it's a pretty little piece - bowl is still usable and after lots of years throwing and being ready for funky things like that to happen on occasion it's not a big deal.

I wasn't in love with this pitcher thank goodness b/c the glaze ran DREADFULLY. The towel is covering it up. I like the colors but the glaze is too thick in general (partly why it ran altho the blue glaze you see here runs like crazy anyway). It has since been crunched with a hammer and a piece of it went into the latest pot of transplanted catnip (curved shards make really good little guards in the bottom of planters to keep the soil from going thru the hole in the bottom so water can drain better).

Arguably my best pot ever from a technical standpoint. Only drawback was the walls were a little too thick for my tastes. But really consistent, super symmetrical, very well built and perfectly-fitting lid, which itself was really symmetrical and consistent. I think the glaze is one of my best jobs ever, too, but the darker glaze here (applied a little thick but not too much) ran worse than any I've ever seen. Drips were so bad that the base of the pot chipped off when taken out of the kiln (hence the towel). The lid is now a paperweight in the office and the base, which I was going to hammer or just throw away, is holding the aforementioned catnip planter. I just used this glaze combo again on something last night - much thinner - hopefully it will work out.

Alack I had forgot...

...that when throwing pots there is one cardinal rule. One must think of ceramics the way one thinks of child rearing. You can mold and form and affect various things and try to create something like what you had in mind but in fact pots, like children (I've heard), will turn out as they will. You can't control other outside influences nor can you really control what they themselves do or decide to be, down deep inside.

And so, you probably already grasped the gist here: I am not over happy with my finished pots so far from ceramics class. Most of it was because of something that even our instructor didn't know; someone had mixed the glazes wrong so most of them ran like crazy. My lidded pot (probably my best work ever, from a technical perspective, even tho it wouldn't have necessarily been my favorite) was the worst victim: glaze ran so badly that in chiseling it off the kiln shelf, the pot itself broke - just the foot but still.

In fact the only one that didn't run at all was a little handle-less pitcher I had brought from Aub*rn (there were three pieces left over from studio work there that never got glazed that last spring b/c the glazes ran out and no one made more in time for me to use them). I used the side grinder on another piece from Aub*rn (probably my most consistently thin, and most symmetrical bowl ever, plus with a really fun shape) which luckily only had two drips. But it takes forever to grind that crap off and with the side (aka hand-held) grinder it is kind of a gigantic pain in the cul just due to logistics and having to hold onto the pot and the grinder and still work effectively (I seriously can't believe we don't have a bench grinder in this studio), so I didn't bother with my pitcher, which ran almost as bad as my lidded pot and had several huge clay boogers (drips). I wasn't super attached to it anyway (oh think "sour grapes" if you must but honestly I'm feeling pretty complacent about it all and about that piece in particular).

The Aub*rn bowl was really the one I was most excited to glaze - so so so thankful it was salvageable. If THAT one had messed up I WOULD have been upset indeed.

As for the pitcher and the lidded pot, I'll take pics but in a way so the drips don't show, more as a record of what glazes I used than for any other reason, and then probably toss the pitcher and the pot but save the lid as a paperweight or something. It didn't run at all and it is really Way Too Cool to throw away. (Even tho the handle wasn't entirely my idea, as I said before. :)

There are still two pieces to fire - one that I'm not crazy about but is kind of whimsical and one that I'm fairly happy with but which wouldn't be hard to duplicate... so we'll avoid glazes we know are runny and see what happens.

Photos to come! I'm at school but will try to remem. to give you a little glimpse sometime this weekend.

downslide & clay play

Had been doing lots better - now it has slipped a bit. Of course I need not to dwell on that. ha! Completely overwhelmed with work, stupid class observation today of my worst section of course, exhausted, headache the last two days for some reason, and the household cat hair/general dirt situation has reached critical mass which always depresses/stresses me until I have time to do another big cleaning session (i.e. more than the tidying and spot-cleaning that is of course carried out regularly, mind you). Dropped the ball on a couple of crucial things today - for me mostly so at least not work-related but still. One would have afforded me $100.

DIHS going strong.

On the bright side I trimmed my teapot last night at pottery class. I'm not super happy with the pieces I've made in there but mostly it was just so I would be authorized to have access to the studio. (There are two Open Studio periods each week at The ARTS Cent*r but you have to have taken a pottery class there in order to be eligible.) It was good to have structure and someone overseeing/advising as I jumped back in anyway. I took the intermediate/advanced class and was pleasantly surprised at how little I seem to have forgot re throwing, etc. The first night there was some trouble centering my clay but after that way less - almost back to normal of 3.5 years ago. I still need lots of studio time in order to feel really comfortable again but lots of yays nonetheless.

The class was good also in forcing me to push the envelope a bit - we had required pieces to do, none of which would I probably have made on my own. As I said I'm not super happy with any of them but I'm really glad I had to do them - somehow having someone say it was required resulted in perseverance about the new/different formats. When you're on your own if you're trying to make something specific and it goes wonky you can just turn it into another bowl or something, but I didn't allow that tactic as an option in the class.

So some day soon you'll have pics of my:

• pitcher (requirement was to do something that would need a pulled handle)
• lidded pot (probably the most fun piece but I don't like the handle because it was slightly forced on me by the instructor and wasn't my own idea - quintessential Susanness raising its head there)
• teapot (all slab-built and kind of wacky and not, I don't feel, very Me, but good experience)
• closed form pot (with lid cut out - this one is not great but is probably my favorite - I loved doing a closed form - so fun! also easiest way to make a lidded pot)

I glazed the pitcher last night - nothing special, just a blue-green solid glaze, no stripes or overlaps, etc., as used to be my wont. I trimmed the teapot and the little lidded pot, and the big lidded pot went into the bisque firing, hopefully ready to glaze tomorrow night.

As of next week I can start attending Open Studio on Weds. nights. There's also one on Tuesdays but too early in the day. You buy your clay directly from the Center, and your glaze is provided out of your Studio fee: $12/wk for Center members like me. If that seems steep it actually is far less than a class, per week anyway. And at any rate it's the only option til I have money and space for my own equipment, etc. (More money and a different abode are the necessary steps FAR in the distant future for lots of things my imagination has decided will be necessary for me to really be happy here - if the money situation solidifies substantially before the contentment does, then new career path - almost certainly somewhere else - will move in as the next priority rather than permanent SC residence.)

Oh one other good thing I guess which I have actually been able to be happy about a lot but for some reason this morning slipped my mind: eating SUPER well now for 1.5 weeks straight and pretty good for a few weeks before that (lost another couple pounds altho - shockingly - I'm not dwelling on that part so it's just a nice fringe benefit, even tho *whispered with delight* 2.5 more pounds and I will be seeing a number on the scale [in the tens spot] which I have not seen since 2004 :)

Fringe benefit of the fringe benefit helps too: lots of "new" clothes I for some reason had saved but haven't fit into for, in some cases, as much as 4 years. It's nice to have more than 3 outfits to wear, especially when it's fun duds (and lots of old faves even) not Fat Clothes.

More on food later - that would take a mondo post.

she said, grudgingly...

OK at least it's not as butt-ugly as it was when I signed on the other day to find LIGHT BLUE everywhere. For the moment I'm taking the path of least resistance: embellishing this one a bit b/c I don't have the time/patience to try to resolve the whole getting-the-old-template-back situation. And yes, I admit, this is kind of a nice change of pace, mostly since I could still play with colors a bit and could use my own photo for the background.

Sprained my ankle tonight. Er... last night. Then fell asleep while icing it. Slept a long time and woke up at 11 (I wonder why?!) just in time (coincidence!) for S&L's bedtime snack (crazy!) and then proceeded to be WIDE AWAKE the rest of the night.

I'm going to go for another hour now even tho I still don't feel sleepy; long day ahead tho.

Starting CERAMICS again!!!!! After a French Club thing I'm not looking forward to... bof.