Bottles

Tonight I made my first bottles. But first, an unexpected Easter gift.

The wine, Carolina peach jam, and granola are from a wonderful woman, Nancy. I had the joy of having lunch with her earlier this week and she surprised me with these gifts. Granola and jam are both homemade. These brought a smile to my face, for time with Nancy and her care is pure grace to me. Thanks, Nancy! The beautiful, colorful Easter gift bag reminded me that in life, colorful surprises are just around the corner. I hope everyone reading this has people in their life who surprise them with grace the way as Nancy gave me.

Ron's class is one of the highlights of my week. While I love to make yunomi teacups, I like it that Ron is challenging all of us to try new forms. Of course, he makes it look so easy.

So tonight, he did a demo on the bottle form, and also with a spout and handle. I like the simplicity of just the bottle and decided to stay and work with that form as I can make spouts and handles (of course, I could always use more practice though). First, begin with a cylinder form. This is only about a little over one pound of clay. Then he began to collar it and make the top portion.Before we knew it, this form was finished. This is great for olive oil or other liquids like that. I'm going to make several more bottles in the days to come. Good gifts for spring flowers to be put inside. I like simple forms and this is one that caught my eye. Here are a few for starters. As you can see, the one on the left was my first. Bottles are harder to make than they look.(On the one on the right, I used more clay; about 1 1/2 lbs; the other two are one pounders). Gosh, pottery is another whole world. I love it.