Why I Never Get Ahead

It's no wonder I never get caught up. I started tthree weeks ago to make some Fairy Houses. Several people had asked for them, and I was down to 3 and these 3 are not the coziest nests in the woods. So my plan was to make a dozen new ones and have them ready for the second Saturday (Market Day) in October.

Threw a dozen small cylinders for the bases. Then I started press-molding the roofs. While doing them I got a bit bored so I thought of other things to do. Took a break and washed the floor. Put the mop, an old stringy number, outside to dry. Went back to making roofs. Somehow it became the next day and I trimmed the cylinders and started to fit the roofs to the bases. I don't attach them, because the roofs are glazed in different colours and it is too hard to keep the colours from getting on to the bases... you know what I mean here. Seemed to have some extra roofs... plus I got the idea that a mushroom shape would be fun.

So back to the wheel to make another 6 bases. While there I threw a dozen or so mini vases, the kind that people want to put brown weeds in every fall. About 2" high, any shape I felt like, some carving, some poking to make off-centre shapes. Fun to throw, fun to glaze, hell to trim.

It poured rain and the mop is soaked.

Had to make more roofs as the new bases didn't fit the ones I had. Made some very small ones and more bases to fit them.

Then I had to go do other stuff - shopping, banking, cooking, even a little cleaning because someone was coming.




 Got back to the houses on Monday. Painted some of the bases, then got tired and spent an hour watering my geraniums - here are a few in the Studio window. I don't have nearly enough room for them for the winter so I took some cuttings and got them set up in little pots under a plastic dome. You can just see the end of the dome on the left.

In front of the Geraniums you see some of the colours I use to paint my pots. I've started giving each colour its own small tile palette and leaving them out. Messy but efficient, sort of.

After that I had to check my fern seedlings. They live in a shelf unit I made, under flourescent lights, until they get too big. Then they have to go outside. Going to be a bit of a problem this time as it's almost winter. Bad planning!

Went to get a lid for a small plastic container and the whole mess of lids stored on a certain shelf crashed down around my ears. Picked them all up, brushed off the dead spiders, sorted out the unusual ones and put the rest in a blue bag for re-cycling. Why do I have 396 lids and 3 containers without lids?

Back to the Fairy Houses. Had fun getting out buckets of glaze in neat colours for the roofs. Dipped all the bases in clear. Finally, two weeks after I started, the houses went into the kiln. Here are a few:

In all, I ended up with 25 Fairy Houses and one tiny weed vase.

That's a semi-matte white glaze over a shiny black glaze - an old and hackneyed idea but still effective. It's only a weed vase.

Only 2 weeks late and not really suitable for fall (the weed vase is, not the houses) but hey, I did them.

The mop may dry sometime this month, or else if I wait until it gets really cold, maybe it'll freeze dry.