Here's my lovely jon at our stand at The Big Cake Show, Exeter, it's not a show we would have picked to do but we won best stand in show at The Big Food Show last October. The prize was a free stand and with accommodation provided by some lovely friends it was a cheap show to do. Lucky for us as the crowds weren't mad so with covering the cost of people sorted every sale was profit, unfortunately not everyone was so lucky and a few stands had big loses, particularly the stands selling food. If it's not sold they have no choice but too dump or give away. There was a lovely bakery stand near ours from Teignmouth and they arrange every day for unsold goods to be collected for the homeless, what a great idea!

It wasn't all work, we had a few runs along side an estuary in Exminister, beautiful coast on one side and a bird nature reserve on the other, loaded up with all sorts of birds I didn't recognise and one particularly lovely heron, he was massive. 


Then home and back to a small workshop at my house. These three lovely lades spent the best part of a day making their own ceramic wreath once I'd showed them the various techniques needed. They had a great time and I love their final pieces. It's great to see the techniques interrupted by other people and has given me a few ideas for when I next get chance to make a few decorative pieces.


Here's one of the piece's just finished, they are all drying now in the pottery. Part of the deal is that I will fire and oxide them and then they are ready for posting so not only did they learn the process but they get their piece to keep. Bargain course with lunch thrown in too! 

i've got a large order on and one of the requests was for a red glaze, I'm not normally keen on reds as they can look too man made but I found one I like and here it is sitting with the beige and oatmeal glazes, a great contrast.


I like mixing up the colours/glazes/shapes - personally I think it makes for a more interesting look but everyone is different!


These little guys are being re-fired as I think they could do better with the finish, ready to send off to a lovely restaurant in Cornwall, Number 6 in Padstow, owned by Paul Ainsworth. He's had a load already and wanted more little jugs. They are individual sauce pots, or milk pots, or dressing, madly I only have one in my kitchen, think I'll nick a few spares for me!


Another piece from the workshop, loads of detail layered up on here.


These beautiful photo's have been taken by a food stylist called Laura Field, no surprise she works for lots of people and she's made by bowls look amazing! 

Loving the feeling of spring arriving this week, picked these from the garden.


I've been making work specific for an order which is great and below are my more simple photo's of other examples they have asked for. It's a resturant by the sea and so my Cornish ware glaze fits perfect.







And whilst all of this is going on I've been sneaking into the garden and started the spring clean up. We've totally changed the gardens layout and now the beds and paths are kind of sorted it's moving plant time! Loved doing this in the sunshine this week.


And isan't social media amazing! Visiting another resturant next week with a view to an order after seeing my photo's on twitter! Happy days! 

It's been a busy week this week but lots done and lots achieved. I've kept up the photography and there's lots of examples here. I've started playing with the photo's on the website, that's not going so great as I'm not clear on the layout but I'm roping in Jon to help today and we'll get back in touch with the web designers too. It will get sorted but I think we both know now that we will sell less designs on the site. 

I want to encourage people to talk to us rather than click buttons, we can give so many choices of sizes and colours and styles but these can't be fully shared in an on line shop. Below is one of my favourite photo's of the week, the sun flooded the conservatory late one afternoon.


Above and below are my medium sized bowls, breakfast, soup or dessert bowls, the two below were the prize for a competition on twitter which ran this week, I'll be posting them out on Monday, once I've got them wrapped up. The glaze really is this light textured blue, it's great on bowls but I find it too strong on plates.





Love the detail you can see here and this really reflects how wonderful this clay is, it's like soap stone to the touch.

Below is a new reactive glaze I'm trying. These glazes are great in the variety they offer but not the glaze to offer people who want the same piece over and over, the surface changes depending on vertical or horizontal, thickness and then there's the positioning in the kiln itself.



Another photo shoot image below, I wish I was better at photography and food styling as what I see other people do with our work is really amazing, I'll just have to keep trying. I'm popping into town this week so I'll buy some fresh ingredients and carry on playing.


I haven't really done many photo's with Jon's bards but I was happy with this one, I'm setting up a twitter competition for Jon next to get him followers, the prize will be one of his oak chopping/serving boards.



This coming week I'll be throwing and turning everyday with some glazing in-between. I've got two orders to fill and prep starts for the show's coming up. The kiln is cooling right now so I'll open that Monday morning and hopefully have some more new work to photo. I have spent the last couple of weeks sorting out shapes for mugs, jugs and cups and I think I'm sorted now so I need to glaze sets together.

I'm also hoping to run four or five times, have a nice shop/lunch with a friend and do some gardening,  whilst it's now warm enough to garden it's too wet!