Teapot Carving

Happy Halloween. Instead of carving a pumpkin I am carving on my teapot. You see it was a bit heavier than I wanted. When I threw it I quit when I got to the point that the lid opening fit the lid that I threw. My clay is much more forgiving than I give it credit for and I could have pushed it some more. But I didn't. I quit when I got worried...

So I have a rather heavy pot. I am carving in it hoping that it will lighten up a bit. It will dry and get somewhat lighter also. I am trying to not be too hard on myself since after all, this is my first teapot...

I am very happy with the way the handle went on, I pulled it this morning and placed it in front of the heater vent so I could apply it to the teapot before I had to leave the house. YAY!

Caution, Teapot in Progress

Yesterday I started my teapot journey. I am so happy with my first attempt. I threw it kind of like the man, Tim, in the Utube video. First the lid (which is backward from the way I usually make lids)...then the spout and then the body. I must apply the handle today. I couldn't leave it alone this morning; as I removed the plastic from it I bumped the handle on the lid and made a boo-boo. I get angry at my own impatience! Now it will be ugly and all of that. Well, that's not so, it is a perfectly fine teapot so far....

Samantha Phillips Gould

One of my interests is genealogy. I have traced my family back to pre-Revolutionary days following my mothers line. A cousin of my mothers in Montana had done quite a lot of research and had given it to my mother. Well, mom was a sharing person and she gave some to her sisters and didn't keep it all intact. I got a few pages and pieced a lot together and did a ton of research on my own. The intenet has so much misinformation that I couldn't trust it and did a lot of work at Sutro Library and spent a lot of money sending for copies of original documents.

This gravemarker is my 3rd great grandmother, wife of Nathan Gould whose father fought in the Revolutionary War as a private while in Massachusetts. My sister was interested in joining Colonial Dames and I supplied the proof for her. Some member mailed the documents that I supplied and she is a member now. I am hoping she will send me the copies of the paperwork that she submitted. I have asked her to do this, she is pretty busy though. I'll remind her in a week or so....

What I need right now is solid proof that Elijah Phillips (b. 14 Feb. 1759) in Ashfiled, Franklin Co., Mass., and Cynthia Goodwin (b.1766) in W. Hartford, CT had a daughter named Samantha - the same one mentioned here! Well, I would also like to have documentation on Cynthia Goodwins father, Uriah; he comes from a long line of Goodwins in Hartford starting with Ozeas...Ozeas was born in England and died and is buried in CT. He died 3 April 1683.

Carpenter in Need

Well, this is a departure for me. I read about KIVA, this organization that lends to extremely small businesses. Well, KIVA oversees the loans, indivuduals lend in $25.00 increments.

I want to lend to all of them of course, but what really got me was the man that wants to be a carpenter and needs money for tools and wood; just the essentials. He wants to make things. YAY - here is a person I connect with big time. So, anyway, I just wanted to plug something on my blog, not for myself but for some one else for a change. His name is Sisson and he lives in Togo. He needs $600.00, I hope he gets his carpentry business going and that he makes lots and lots of whatever he likes to make.

Teapot Throwing

Since one of my goals is to make a teapot before December I thought I would look up how other people do it! Well, this guys throws pretty fast so I am saving it on my blog to review. I can throw all of the pieces that go into the teapot, so theoretically I can make a teapot...
After watching this I wonder why I made this goal to make a teapot.

All By Myself

One thing I like about my blog is that I can just ramble on and get my thoughts down. No one interrupts me and says I am wrong or that I shouldn't say that or that what I wrote wasn't very nice or anything at all. No one even says I am brilliant. That is one thing I like.

Here is another tile. I won't post all of them. But it's interesting to see them on my computer screen as if they are part of the story.

Plaster Mold

Well, tonight I poured a mold of a tile I made. It will be a couple of days before it is all set up enough to remove it from the plaster and inspect the mold. My tile is the 3 dragonfly design that I have hand painted using underglazes like the one in the picture. Have I shown this tile on my blog before? Probably, oh well, here it is again....

I like doing the 3 intertwined image designs, I don't know why. I look for them; so far all I have found is the dragonfly and I have a fish one I like too. My box of 50 bisque tiles is gone now so I can quit making them for a while.