It's been a minute or two since I last blogged. Got in to pottery in a big. I've taken 3 wheel throwing classes in my life and at the last class, it really clicked for me, so I went ALL IN.
Work Space
My wonderful husband bought me an intro pottery wheel (Vevor 14"). The cost difference between this and the other name brand machines is wild. This wheel does not have bat pins and I definitely wanted to use bats, so I did research and found out that using a shammy works pretty well for keeping the bat stuck on the wheel.
I converted part of my laundry room into a throwing studio. Then I got a work table with and made my own plywood tabletop, then added some carts for glaze. Also had to buy a bunch of buckets and make my own plaster bats for recycling clay. I also bought a bunch of tools from Temu.
Firing
I started out using Kilnshare to rent space in a local kiln. But I got tired of that real quick with the Seattle traffic and constant back and forth. My husband found me a used kiln on FB Marketplace. He polished it up, changed out the elements and controls and it works like a charm! It's a KM-818, so manual kiln that I have to babysit and turn the knob to turn up the temp. It's been a really learning experience. I've melted many a pot and had to replace one control that partially melted.
At first, I thought I might keep the kiln in my garage since it's not that big, but doing research in to the fumes from the kiln, I decided I needed a kiln shed! So more work. Figured out the best spot for a shed and decided on a 4x6' footprint. Made a gravel foundation, bought a cheap metal shed from Amazon, then hired an electrician to install the 240V outlet. That was the most expensive part of this.
Working Studio
So now I have working home pottery studio.

The goal for my giant quilt to use up more of my stash, but I ended up buying all new fabric that was not the middle square and half-triangles. When I finished putting the blocks together, I sent it to my local quilter, Karen at www.ilongarmquilt.com in Bothell. She is wonderful and did these awesome ice cream cones for me.

I also kept busy by knitting myself a sweater, making custom pillows for vintage Japanese gongs, and resin clips.

Pickles walked into our lives in the summer of 2021 and we refuse to let her go.

Over a year since my last blog post. I've been busy with lots of projects.

As soon as I saw these mittens on Ravelry, I knew I had to make them. Unfortunately, the only way to get the pattern was to buy an issue of Make Magazine, which cost my cheap butt $35, but at least it came with a bunch of other cool projects to inspire. This has been a quick knit, although stitching all these flowers has been pretty time consuming.  I probably should have also followed the directions to use sport weight instead of worsted, but I really wanted to use this rich golden merino and added texture with mohair.

Here's a little updated on my terra planter. My orchids are blooming like crazy, but the maidenhair fern is starting to die a bit. I have to spritz the whole planter daily or else it'll dry out too much.

Last summer, I started a new hobby along with lots of other COVID-housebound folks. Aquariums! 

First, I got a DOOA neo glass air nano tank and outfitted it with a CO2 system. All the glass accessories look so cool in the tank. Later on, I got another DOOA short tank for shrimp and plants, but alas, the shrimp all died and it's now only devoted to plants and a terra planter. Since I'm a DOOA fan, I got their medium sized terra planter and wrapped it with sheet moss and added a mini orchid, maidenhair fern, and some other mounding fern. I spritz it daily to keep it moist. 

This quilt job was bananas!

A close family friend is having a baby! So I needed to make a quilt. Unfortunately, my sewing machine was being serviced when I heard this news, so I used this time to plant and cut out my triangles. I bought myself an Accuquilt Studio 2 a few years ago and it's so awesome for projects like this. Cutting this out took all of an hour. Somehow, it came out a lot smaller than I had designed, so I added a border and I think it's looks cute.

I saw this quilt on instagram and knew I had to make this. It combine the applique techniques of Carolyn Friedlander and the flower designs of Leah Duncan (long-time fan!) I'm going to make this Wildabon Quilt into a wall hanging for my office. I'm planning to get get some quilting thread and use metallic thread as well.