New year and new post

Well it is a new year and my New Year's resolution is to post every other week things that I am working on.  I have been very lacked in that respect.  So to catch up I will post some things that I have been doing.  I have attending demos and built a new bread oven as well.  Made more hats and currently working on some hood and clothing.  

Happy New Year Everyone!  

And the walls come crumbling down......

After a few days camping and some serious rainy and questionable weather, the elements started to take a toll on my oven.  Even though it was covered it could not hide from mother nature.

 A huge crack started to form.  I thought well, that is ok, I will just mud it up with clay but that was not going to hold it  The oven was not just cracking the walls were crumbling from the inside due to the crack.  Here is a closer view of the crack...

 I then realized it would not make it home again.  So we fired it up one last time and we made pizza and calzones. If it was going out it needed to go out in style!  So we got the oven screaming hot and the back cracked more we filled her up and let her go.  It only took 10 minutes and the calzones and pizzas were done. A couple even got burned too much on the bottom to eat.

They were so good.  Since the oven was still hot after six calzones, two pizzas and about 9 pepperoni rolls.  We decided to make a chocolate cake.

I took one of my hand thrown period pots I made and put in the batter then added it to the oven.  Silly me thinking the oven was much cooler now and it would need time to cook....the first inch burned to a char but the inside would warm and yummy.  To top it off, my dish survived the head and did not break!

But that is more than I could say for my poor oven.....

As you can see.  Pieces stated to fall out.  Our fun with the oven was done.  There was no fixing it at this time.  I left the camp area because I did not want to see my husband take it apart.  He said he returned it back to the earth.  It's funny how one could become so attached to an inanimate object.  
I have decided to build another in the next couple of weeks.  I have several things to improve upon and change.  
I will however be posting the class I taught to my blog.  I hope it inspires someone else to build an oven as well.

Updating.....

Through the next few days I will be updating my blog. Adding a couple more classes and changing a few others. I am also going to be adding more than just hats and headdresses. But other items of interest as well. Perhaps I should change the tag line a bit......hmmmm

Playing with clay....pottery that is

For more than a year I have been drooling over period pottery, especially cooking pots. During medieval times, pottery was widely used because it was easier to obtain and less expensive then metal. Since our goal to become more "period" with our demonstrations and our appearance, I thought I would look into what is involved making it myself. I contacted a local artist who has a gallery and she said she did private lessons. So I started going twice a week. Through the winter I worked on projects. The first piece I made was a simple handled serving dish then a half thrown and half hand built butter churn. Then I made a cooking pot. All three had broken out bottoms during firing. The bottoms where not compressed enough during the throwing process. I was able to salvage the cooking pot and add in a poxy to fill in the broken area. You can not cook in it, but I can us it to hold herbs and such. I found I really enjoy making pottery and my teacher told me I must have been a potter in a past life. I could only afford to take the lessons for a few weeks and this is what I produced.

Rams head pitcher glazed with iron oxide. Thrown with a hand built collar and pulled handed.The rams head was built with a pinch pot method. It's funny of the pitcher seemed so big until it was fired.



Storage pots. I plan to make bees waxed linen lids for them.





Bowls. The one on the right is actually a lot larger but you can't tell from the picture. I use it to mix bread.



Cooking pot with lid. I hope to make another soon that can be used on a fire.
This is the third piece that I made.



Period pie pan or grate pye dish. I would like to make a couple more of these as well.



Small cups for my daughters. These are a little out of turn.
I seem to be able to throw bigger pieces easier.