A little more restful day today but I did make a few things. Sue Ryder is running a competition to make a product, advertise it on their Facebook page and the most voted for pieces get commissioned for at least 25 pieces. Think I might have left it too late as the competition has been running for a while but I made the heart below and sent the photo off, it's resting on others that show the finished effects. 




I spent the morning working out in Jon's folly, he built this to have the feel of a ruined cottage, the fire place works! The floor needs finishing.


And here is an olive tree all the way from Portugal, olive boards coming soon.











So we finally made it to Chester and set up camp on the racecourse, what a fab site! This is our accommodation for the trip, had to bring car and van as couldn't set up straight away and couldn't fit me, Jon and stock in all together. This lovely little van has been all over Europe with us but first outing this year.




We were really lucky to have a couple of sets of friends with us, biggest and best paella ever was cooked up on the first night which was a little chilly, but after that the weather was hot! till a massive down pour on Sunday afternoon.




Loads of food stalls, massive show, fab pizza from the van above for lunch on Saturday and below our stall. Lots of sales and lovely comments from people and possibly some future opportunities as well.



Jon's boards sold particularly well as did the hearts, first real outing for them and lots sold so need to get busy in the pottery. 

That will happen after a day of sorting and resting here at home. After an interesting chat with a chef I thought I'd try 'bread bowls' - first batch cooked today and they worked really well.




Nice round bread rolls for lunch and then a little recovery siesta I think, one month till Chatsworth!






Progress!

Had a little spare time to look back over posts so far and it's great to see the progress in the months since I started this, what a fast learning curve! throwing is better, glazes are better, products are better and proper plans for the year ahead, far more than expected. Let's hope it continues to develop so well as the feed back is tremendous.

Here's examples of the blue glaze on some of the biggest bowls. I'm so pleased with these, some won't be leaving the premises until I have more. It's so soft in its colour and texture, really want to see some bright oranges and light salads inside. Below is a close up detail of motifs on the outside, these work really work too. The blue glaze in the front is very bright blue and one I have brought in, I'm asking the manufactures to check as it looks a lot like its got barium in it, not food safe if it is.