It's been a while

I've been neglecting my poor, poor blog for a while. Life seemed to keep getting in the way. So what have I been up to? Well, I am rather pleased with how my yarn bowls have come out recently. So far I have made 4 and a 5th is waiting for the kiln. One had an accident as well but we won't dwell on these things. So here are some pics showing the new yarn bowls. Enjoy! 

My signature on the bottom, CAW.

Again, with signature.

Thanks for reading,
Cath xx
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A little treat for me

I've been making a few little things for me recently. These all wall pockets! I'd never heard of them until someone asked me if I made them. A quick google search and I now know what they are. Isn't Google wonderful! So I got busy and me and my daughter had a go at making our own versions of wall pockets. 

This one has a sprig of a flower from my garden impressed into it and painted. I forget what the flower is called now though but I think it starts with a G! :) 

Now this flower I do know! Lavender! Also taken from my garden. 

This time I played with dots from my piping bag full of slip. I was thinking all the lines of a fern. What do you think?

I also have some photos of the stages of production. 

Here I have several wall pockets that I made with my daughter. She also impressed leaves into hers. I do love her butterfly on the far left that she created completely! 

A close up of L'il Miss' wall pockets. These were made for Nanny. They were finished in white with a pale green glaze painted on and wiped off the leaves to bring out the veins on the leaves. I'm afraid I don't have photos of them finished. 

The top wall pocket sadly met it's doom in the kiln but the bottom one is shown above finished. 

This is the brown wall pocket in it's greenware stage. 

So now that I have these wall pockets on my garden fence I need to think of a good hardy plant to put in them. I'm really not green fingered so I'll need one that can withstand my neglect! I'm thinking of ivy at the moment. Do you have any ideas for me? Answer in the comments and remember that the plant needs to be tough to survive me! 

Lovely to have you, as always. If you'd like to see more from Ty Siriol them you can follow us on various social media. See below. 

Thanks for reading,
Cath xx 

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Wheelie good fun!

As some of you know I bought a pottery wheel the end of last year and I now have to somehow teach myself to learn how to throw pots. I've found some really good videos on you tube to get me started and the wonderful Mr Ty Siriol bought me the Simon Leach book and dvds for Christmas. 

Even though it has been a tad cold for working in the garage over the winter months I have managed a few attempts with the aid of a fan heater. I really need to get that garage door bricked up! 

Anyway, I have a set of 3 tapas bowls that I made for Mr Ty Siriol as he does love his Mediterranean food. Here is what they looked like after the first firing and once the glazes had been painted on. This is before the final firing. 

A set of tapas bowls ready to be glaze fired.

 The brown glaze is meant to turn out green after the firing. 

Here are the final bowls. 

Tapas bowls after the glaze firing

Tapas bowls for Mr Ty Siriol

I am really pleased with how they turned out. I think the dark blue one is my favourite as I really love that you can see the circular marks where it was thrown on the wheel. 

As this was the first thing from my wheel that was worth firing I had to sign and date the bottom of the very first one. This little guy will now be my bench mark to see if I improve! In the meantime they are being well used. :-)

The underside of my first tapas bowl with my signature and the date. 

I'm looking forward to the weather warming up enough that I can throw on the wheel with the garage door open so I can see the woods opposite at the same time. 

That's all for now folks. Thanks for joining me. 

Cath xx


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Festive robins!

It's that time of year again when we dust off the festive ornaments and bring them back out to shine. A few years ago I made a robin and he comes back out every Christmas, in fact he never really goes away but is relocated to somewhere less prime. I like to rotate my pieces for display and I have enough of them now! Here's my faithful robin. 

This lil guy is a few years old now and one of my very first pieces. I still love him. 

This year I made a series of robins for the Christmas tree. All but one have been sent as gifts but this one is my daughter's robin and he hangs on our tree. 

This year's new addition to the robins.

I had fun making these but did learn a valuable lesson about glaze interactions. The breast was meant to be red but it reacted with the brown to give a golden colour. I actually quite like it even if it was an accident. The main thing is that my daughter loves him.

I hope you are all getting in the festive spirit and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas with lots of robins. :-) 

Cathy xx

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Introducing Ty Siriol Crafts

I've wondered for some time now about having crafts other than ceramics in a shop called 'Ty Siriol Ceramics'. Finally this year, my mum, Chris has taken over the crafts side of Ty Siriol Ceramics & Crafts and we have opened a second shop, 'Ty Siriol Crafts'. 

Not only does this segregate our stock nicely but it also gives my mum an opportunity to learn to use a computer and run a shop. I have to say that I'm really proud of how well she is doing. I've set her up with a laptop and the basic software to start with and she's hit the ground running. She does the photography and watermarking herself as well as uploading the stock onto the shop. She even has a facebook page now! 

My next task is to teach her to use the teams on Etsy and introduce her to the lovely Golden Threads team. I'm sure she would fit in really well. In fact it could become hard to tear her away. :) 

To give you an idea of what Chris has in her Etsy shop here are a couple of photos. Firstly, Chris is an artist and does some fantastic paintings.

One of Chris' silhouette paintings

This is an original oil painting that Chris has done. I have several of her works in my house.

 Chris also turns her hand to paper crafts and combines them with crochet. I call it mixed media crochet art! 

A mixed media greetings card incorporating crochet art.

Chris is also very experienced at knitting and crochet. Sadly I don't have any of her work in my files but these, which are mine, are also in her shop to give you an idea. 

My rhubarb and custard scarf

A scarlet red scarf with tasseled ends

These lovely wrist warmers are also in stock

Chris is also talented with ceramics and a few pieces in my shop were made by her. Here is an example.

A holly and berry bowl by Chris

I would like to congratulate my mum on her hard work and talents. Mum, this blog is all about you and how proud of you I am. :-)

If you would like to have a nose at Chris' new shop then you can find it here.
www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TySiriolCrafts 

Pop by and please tell your friends. You never know, you might spot a unique gift for someone who has everything! 

Thanks for reading and take care,
Cathy xx


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New beginnings

As my regular followers will know, I got engaged last year. Well now things are getting going again with organising the wedding as it is, oh my goodness, 3 MONTHS TODAY!! It really has crept up on us as we've had so much going on. 

So we have sent out the invites and booked venues etc. I pretty much have wedding on the brain at the moment. As a result it became my inspiration in my pottery workshop this week. Let me explain. 

I was making a terracotta tile and I've been struggling for inspiration recently with the ongoing battle against my illness. I sat there completely blank and clueless as to what my tile would become. A fellow classmate asked me how the wedding plans were coming along and that's when it hit me. I am about to embark on a new life and new beginning with Mr Ty Siriol so that was what my tile was going to represent. 

Let me back up a little. I met Mr Ty Siriol online. I know, it's a cliché and I'd really rather not admit it but one drunken night I signed up and made a profile. I went with the alias Benu, which is the ancient Egyptian Benu Bird. It symbolises rebirth and new beginnings. It is in fact the predecessor of the Greek Phoenix. So the Benu Bird means something to me and Mr Ty Siriol as that's how we met and started our new beginning together.

I looked at my terracotta tile and drew the Benu Bird onto it. I then made the image into a deep groove. Here it is. 

Next I used a slip trailer to add white liquid clay (slip) to the grooves. Once this is dried I will then scrape it back to a flush surface to clean up the detail and bisque fire it. 

The beauty of terracotta and white clay is the stark contrast between the two colours so I will simply clear glaze it afterwards and fire again to intensify the colours. 

I can't show you the finished product yet as I haven't finished it! I did add two holes to the tile as I intend to hang this in my kitchen once it's finished as a reminder of my second chance at love.

I need to sort out the kiln now so that I can get firing again soon. Hopefully then I'll have some lovely pics to share with you. 

Thank you for reading.

Cathy x
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I said Owl be back!

As you can probably guess today I'm featuring owls! Sorry about the really obvious pun in the title but it really did have to be done! 

After chatting to a friend online before Christmas I set about making her a family of ceramic owls. I'd never done them before but she was happy to experiment with me. So out came the clay!

First I made 2 pinch pots and joined them to make a bubble. This was roughly squeezed into an owlie sort of shape taking care not to burst the bubble. 

An owlish sort of shaped bubble of clay. You need a bit of imagination at this point!

Next I needed to refine the owl features so the clay was smoothed off and some features were added. Now it starts to look like a lump of clay with attitude!

Looking a little perplexed maybe?

All she needs now are some wings and feathers. She looks like a she to me, all snuggled with plumped up plume.

Mrs Hoot!

As my friend wanted 3 owls to represent her family I pretty much repeated the above process to make Mr Hoot, who looks to be giving a lecture and baby Hoot who is smaller and has her wings out asking for a cuddle, awww. There is an extra one *just in case* as Kenny the kiln could throw a fit!

The Hoot family before firing.

This of course is what the owls look like before firing and glazing. So I begged Kenny to be good for me and set them cooking. Once they came out of the kiln they were all white as that is the true colour of the clay I use.

After the first (bisque) firing. If you are wondering, the other one is a mushroom house!

 My next task was to glaze the owls and my friend told me what each family member's favourite colours were so that their owl was definitely theirs. We went for black, purple and silver. I also painted one turquoise as I thought the glaze would work well. The colours don't show up before the second firing so it's a bit deceiving unless you are really familiar with them. For instance, the black one here actually ends up being the silver one and the grey one turns out black!

Painted with glaze and looking a bit dull before firing.

 After the second (glaze) firing it's cross your fingers time! This is when I talk very nicely to Kenny and hope he's behaved as he does have a tantrum now and again. On this occasion I opened Kenny and was horrified. The bottom shelf had cracked in two during the firing and everything stacked on the shelves above fell. The owls were on the bottom shelf so I couldn't see if they survived but you know what, they are tough l'il guys and survived intact. I was at least expecting a broken wing.

The owl family 'Hoot' after their ordeal in Kenny!

Do you have a favourite? I'm quite taken by baby Hoot but I think Mr Hoot and his deliberations make him my favourite. Here they are after a photo shoot!

The family 'Hoot' inspired by Georgia.

I hope you enjoyed 'the making of family Hoot'. I love to share my process with you. Also, a big thank you to Georgia who inspired me to make these and push me out of my comfort zone. 

I hope to see you again soon!

Cathy x
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