Tuesday 26 June 2012

Buttons and Ribbons

Summer is the quiet time

No, scratch that. Summer is the quiet time for selling buttons and ribbons, as I'm spending most waking hours outside battling the wilderness and trying to coerce recalcitrant poultry into doing what they are told

A job that goes about as well as you might expect.

Been a  bit damp, this summer, though, so I did for once have time to play

New at PaperSpill are these mixed packs of ribbons and buttons

in rose





and in winter red





Monday 18 June 2012

Barbecued Pots Part 1

I love smoke-firing. I love the unpredictability of it.

What I didn't love was having to get the The Boss to fire up the forge and the fact we could only do things small enough to fit in a baked bean can.

So when our friendly, neighbourhood flytippers dumped a barbecue, himself was sent straight out to fetch it home. It was a little wonky but 5 minutes with an angle grinder chopped all the legs down to the same height, and wedged in the soft sandy soil of the riverbank, it was just fine.

And so, we got started on very small pit-firing.

First in was a stack of kindling, laid as flat as possible and the grid put back



On top of this went a layer of wood shavings and assorted 'organics' from the duck and goose shed


While The Boss was busily building pyres, I was adding various things to the bisque pots

There are 2 tin cans of beads, packed in more shavings. Sulphur powder was added to one, Bordeaux mixtures (copper sulphate and lime) to another. Wetted fine seaweed was draped over one terracotta bowl and dried seaweed wrapped around another. The larger bowl was filled with seaweed and wrapped in foil - an impromptu saggar. One white saucer was left plain.





A few pyromaniac moments later and the kindling started. The idea is that the shaving smoulder, rather than burning, with the assorted organics creating different colours.



We left it to smoulder...

Thursday 14 June 2012

Hello? Hello?

Sooo, another great long gap in blogging. Haven't really got the hang of this, yet. Ho Hum.

However, the new years resolution is to be a bit more consistent (what do you mean, it's June?)

so in between setting fire to things


dyeing things


restocking the hen house


and a bit of sewing



I shall try to get back here a bit more often.