Chaos, mud, and my church

I am working more now and trying to juggle the school position with working from home, with the added pressure of work being done to my home. (I am currently sharing my workspace with the builders, its full of packaging and builders tools.

My kiln has become a shelf for drills, spanners, hammers you name it and its not really working out, well as far as working in my workshop, so Im back in my "nook" that I made last winter to escape the cold and still get my hands in clay. (see here for that post)

On the upside our lives are changing, our living space will finally be large enough to accommodate our growing family. Currently surrounded by mud, but here is our new space. Im calling it "my Church"

I wish I could say that this will be my new workshop, but sadly no,
 it will be the main living area of my home though. 

Yuk!, this is really a horrible space now, it has become overrun with boxes and bubble wrap, which Im wading through day by day.
Hopefully I will sell loads and it will all be gone by Christmas.

Small areas of my workbench I have some soap stands drying.
I kind of have to see whether these will last with all the foot traffic through here!

Make shift shelves in the corner.
My main shelves are full of tools and other things so Ive had to dry my work out everywhere and anywhere.
Roll on spring!!

Salt and Pepper pots in the making.

I start out like this.
Its black clay and it is messy.

Lined up and drying out.

Lids and lettering

From Hands

to tables....



Taking orders for these via
Not on the High Street

Some New things and shop revamp time!

Well Folksy has been a bit of a wash out this year Ive had no time to do the promotion that is so needed with sites like that and Not on the High street keeps me on the tips of my toes pretty much all year round and with the day job my poor Folksy shop has suffered and well.. died a sorry death.
Folksy have revamped again and this time I really like the layout, the shops look fresh and I feel inclined to give it a bit of attention again, I have to say its got a bit more user friendly than when I last loaded up the product pages, I have listed 4 new things today and it hasn't eaten all my time and was so much easier than before.
Here is what I have put in my shops today:

Ceramic message stones.

http://folksy.com/items/4695292-Ceramic-Message-Stones

I havnt listed this to sell yet, as I have just photographed it to use as my shop avatar, its a little bowl decorated on the underside and melted glass inside, this is one of  the nicer ones that I got from the kiln last week.

This is now my new folksy shop banner,

Just listed in Not on the High street shop, fresh for Christmas.

Japanese silk inspired bowls, I have lots of these, all a little bit different from the next so this one is now on Folksy too.

The Right White Glaze Test Result (making my own Glaze)

Last post I was trying out new recipes for a white stoneware glaze that I could make myself from the raw ingredients that I already have in my workshop. 
I made up four different whites that I thought may suit the firing range I generally fire to (1260c), and the type of stoneware clay I use. 
This was the original post

Here are the test sample results after a 1250.c firing range. As you can see they are quite different with really only two that I would consider using for my work.

Glaze 1 sample I wont make again, its not right for my work and looks gloopy.

Glaze 2 is better it has fitted well onto the clay, it just may need a thicker coat when applied.

Gill's white is good for my work, it fits well onto the clay and its smooth and not too shiny.

Lucie Rie's White was the worst fit for my clay, you can see that it has started to separate away from the clay sample and just looks bobbly and gloopy (not for me) 
sorry Lucie

Here they are again and I fired the same glazes onto broken pieces of greenware (unfired clay) to see how they looked. I think the results were similar to results on bisque ware (fired clay)
Im going to definately make the Gill's White and begin to use this on my work. 
So watch out for new pieces that I will be using this new white glaze on.

and this is how I make and choose new glazes to make!

This is my glaze board. I use all these colours on my work, some are bought glazes and some are made from raw materials. I just keep adding to it when I find something I like to use.

The Right White

Ive been spending a bit of time gathering glaze recipes for a white stoneware glaze. Ive found three potentials which might be suitable for the kind of work I do. 
I already have all the dry ingredients stored in my workshop so I was determined to use them and not get lazy and buy a ready made one, as lovely as they are. ( Its quite satisfying to make a good one that suits the clay and Ive made it myself) The downside is they look great when you see an example but once Ive had a go at making it, it doesnt always resemble what I had in mind. 
So here goes, I have chosen 4 white stoneware glazes to make. 

The first two glazes I chose came from my glaze recipe book. They are very similar as you can see below they have all the same ingredients, but slight differences in measurements and types of oxides

. I have made the samples 1 & 3 on this page and named my samples glaze 1 and glaze 3

I have made small quantities of each one and I will compare all of them when they are fired , choose my favourite and make a large batch of the one I choose. They were all carefully weighed out on scales and put into plastic bags at first then mixed with a little water and left to settle in a jar.

After leaving the glaze to settle overnight I gave it a bit of a stir and painted them onto my already fired tile samples. (these all get pinned onto a board thats why they have holes on them)

On the reverse I have written the sample name on so I know which ones they are.
As you can see I have also decided to make a Lucie Rie Glaze aswell and then Gills White which looked good and fires to stoneware temps too.

Here are three of them done. Not looking like much at the moment. But will post again once they are out of the glaze firing.