Shooting Star Ornaments

In the studio finishing up last minute things for the sale...

Malea Rhodes
www.malearhodes.blogspot.com

Chicken and a sale!

What a wonderful week. I now have a new found love for the Beer Can Chicken! That bird was so tender when I tried to take the beer can out the whole thing fell apart. I know it looks small, but the platter that it was on is HUGE! It was almost 8lbs. KT and I only ate half the breast. The rest was pulled, bones cooked down and is now a tasty broth in my freezer to be used for one of my Tuesday Night Knitting Club dinners.

The big news is that next Sunday, December 7th is my studio's Holiday Sale!

The Celadon Studio Annual Holiday Sale!

#38 The Maplewood Shops, Northampton, MA (basement level under Grumpy's Place)

Noon - 4pm

Stop in, buy some really great hand made pottery and ceramic art, try your hand at the potters wheel, sign up for a class, buy a class gift certificate for someone you love, or just hang out and talk to the potters!

There are 6 resident potters in the studio, and all will have work for sale so there will be a good variety of work to choose from. Definitely something for everyone.

Hope to see you there!

Happy Thanksgiving

Today I am thankful for my friends. If you are reading my blog then you are one of those friends whom I am thankful for.
Wishing much happiness and full bellies to all.

Malea Rhodes
www.malearhodes.blogspot.com

Almost forgot...

I have to give credit to my bouncer...she guarded the door all night to ensure the rif-raf didn't crash the party.

Go Olive! She was almost convincing.

House Warming Gathering...

What a good time! I made stemless wine glasses for everyone, plus a few tumblers in case someone brought beer, or different tastes you know, keeps the world interesting. My friend Linda with Pioneer Valley Vineyard gave some wine to me for my guests to taste. When the guests arrived I gave them their choice of these: There were about double this many, but I had some in the dish strainer drying. I like to wash them right out of the kiln to get any chemical residue off. Better safe than develop a third eye. All thought a third eye might be useful, the constant staring by strangers would drive me mad!
These were laid out upside down so people could see the glazes and patterns more easily. Some were stoneware, others porcelain. Below are close ups of my Damaged Goods line. After the guests picked their wine glass, they had their choice of wine and then were shown to the dining area where they got to make needle felted coasters. I thought it would be fun to have things in my new home made by friends. It was so much fun! Most of the guests hadn't tried needle felting before and they were all helping each other, giving each other tips and critiques. It was like a giant ice breaking exercise with fabulous end results!

I had purchased wool roving from WEBS and a needle felting kit to get started. My friend Gail, the Kangaroo Dyer, gave me a giant bag of scraps, some hand dyed, and extra felting materials like needles and sponges.

Below are coasters by my friends Carey, J, Creedy, and KT.

Here we have Cirilia, Chase, Tina and Dena. Kat, Jane, Cara and Sage.

Sara, Fern, Jen, Me and Laura.

This is the lot of them laid out. All together everyone but 2 guests made a coaster, and everyone had a great time. Thanks everyone for coming! Now I have all sorts of great things to remind me of my friends! Thanks again! And if you see your name listed here and want me to link to your blog just shoot me an email at littlepottergirl@yahoo.com

And if you haven't checked out a random new blog lately, please check out my friend Jim's blog. He is just getting started, but is doing a great job!

Cheers!

Fresh From The Kiln

WOW! I unloaded the kiln today and it was a really good firing. It used to be that I always could count on an electric kiln firing consistently, then I discovered fast firings, then holding (holding the kiln at the peak temperature to get colors to bloom, or gas to escape), now it is like going back to square one. But that just makes it all the more like Christmas morning!

So, today we have Melissa's plates:

The color is really better in person. And I even brought my camera in this time instead of my phone. I can fire them again and get a more translucent color, more bright. Depending on if she likes this in person, I can either let it go, or have a redo. But sounds like the sweater up for barter is in it's early stages so we have some time. Love you Melissa......

And these are Jim's bowls! They came out really good. The last photo is a close up of the sunrise scene he carved into the surface before firing.
All of them lined up on the table. They had just come out of the kiln.
Sunrise teabowls!

So, Snow Farm actually starts this weekend...I was a week ahead of myself. So if any of you thought you missed it...there is still hope!

Have a great weekend everyone. I will post more pics of my wine glasses next week. I am thinking of some crazy glazing trials...fingers and toes crossed.

Bye for now!

WOW! So much stuff!

Wow it has been almost a month since my last posting. Sorry everyone. Been moving, unpacking, painting, patching, more painting and getting things finished up for Snow Farm. Which started this weekend! So much stuff to see out there, everyone should go at least once. It runs for 3 weekends, so plenty of time for everyone to squeeze it into their schedule... And buy my pottery...or at least buy something wonderful and hand made even if it isn't mine! Support your local artists. We are a dying breed!

So last week Jim, my Wednesday night student helped me take this picture of the kiln when it was going...You can even read the temperature on the read out.

Tonight I loaded the kiln and the entire bottom and second shelf belong to Jim! He has turned out so much stuff and really taken off. This is some of his work glazed, not yet fired. That will happen tomorrow.

These are 2 of KT's Pots that have been glazed and fired. A few years ago (back when I had free time) I made the staff at WEBS, sheep holiday ornaments. Kathy (one of the owners) had mentioned that she would be interested in selling them in the store. So last week I started the process of making them. This is the first run, I have done them with raised up, or slip trialed designs, carved designs, and slip trailing over carving. We'll see how they turn out and which ever ones get the best feedback I will make a couple dozen to sell at WEBS.

I am going to turn on the kiln tomorrow....and inside are all of the plates for Melissa Morgan Oakes. They will be done and ready to give to her by Wednesday. One more thing down!

And I have to say that while I have been getting settled in my new home I have been knitting up a storm! My most recent finished project is this felted pillow. Knit in Brown Sheep Burly Spun.

And lastly, I have been working really hard to get wine glasses ready for my little house warming gathering. And it is now down to the wire. None of them have come out just the way I wanted...which usually turns out to be the first ones to go oddly enough.

But I have done a bunch of them in all different styles and will glaze them differently. Some of them are in the new "damaged goods" line. Some others are more traditional. But they have all got to be done by this Friday.

Keep your fingers crossed!

testing

My mobile blogger has been giving me problems...aka not working. So this is a test...of he non-emergency go-blogger system

Malea Rhodes
www.malearhodes.blogspot.com