So Much Pottery Going On

I have been blessed recently with lots of pottery activities.  The recent raku firing, and then the pine needle weaving course this past weekend, and lots of finished work coming out of the gas kiln.

Today was my last day for pottery before Spring Break.  So I was happy that I glazed nearly all my remaining items, and then created this beautiful garden sphere :

I've been thinking about making a shape like this for a long time, which is why I made hemispherical clay mould, in which I could build it.  And the fossil shell is also a spring mold which I made a while back.  It worked out pretty much as I had hoped.  We'll see if it dries and then makes it through the two firings okay.  It has a hole in it, so if I put it in the garden, I can set it on a short post / rebar, to keep it from rolling.  If I make more of them, I'd be tempted to make two holes, and add them to a garden totem.  I think that would look really good.

Once I get some good lighting, I want to take better photos of the three sea themed trinket boxes which came out of the kiln today.  They turned out exceptionally well, and this is one of the first times the glazes turned out as well or better than I had hoped.

Here is the batch that came out today :

There were a lot of good pieces in this batch.  I can't wait until I have a chance to do them justice with proper photos.

The bowl at the bottom right, with the blue and white glazes, is part of my set of 4 nesting bowls.  Unfortunately, the other 3 didn't make it into the kiln at the same time.  So hopefully they will make it into the next firing, and I can pick them up this weekend.  I'm really pleased with how the glaze worked out on this one.

As for the pine needle weaving, I think I'll close off this post, and give it its own post, as it deserves.