Tag Archives: pitchers

Throwin the clay

I don’t throw very often these days but I do enjoy it .  I recently broke a little pitcher that Jay uses to brew tea and I also wanted to replace Xena’s food dish so I bought a fifty pound box of porcelain and got to work.  I love porcelain for kitchen items because the small particle size makes a very dense finished product that is chip resistant especially if you give it a nice fat lip.  The down side of fine particles is more shrinkage, a tendency to warp in the fire and slump on the wheel.

gettin artsy in the photo

gettin artsy in the photo

Patience is a virtue that I don’t have much of, but to throw a successful pot, it must be exercised.  First if the clay is not just right moisture-wise don’t even bother to try.  Once the clay is ready, weighing out the lumps and wedging into a cone comes next.  Wedging looks a lot like kneading bread.  The purpose is to remove air bubbles and align the plate shaped particles of clay so they can slide past each other in the throwing process.  This is the secret to clays ability to be stretched and shaped into any form.

Pale blue band on a serving bowl

Pale blue band on a serving bowl

mini tea pot just because it's small dosen't make it easier

mini tea pot
just because it’s small
dosen’t make it easier

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jay loves his new pitcher and I have some for sale, along with a new mini tea set and a few new single serving size cat food dishes (can’t have too many of these with eight recalcitrant cats to contend with!)