Good Saturday

While my red beans are soaking prior to becoming part of chili for dinner, I'll check in at blogspot.  Whow, it's fixed again finally.

I do hope that's a final fix.  I lost faith in it completely over the last several days (since my Thurs. post disappeared until sometime yesterday).  You get to depend upon something, and then it disappears...poof!  Though the news about what was happening was very minimal, one write-up said there were millions of people using blogger, though 75% of them were outside of the US.  I had no idea.

I'm posting this glazing test to get some help...there is pitting (pin holes) in the glaze both where it is thick, as well as near the rim where it is thinner.

I will obviously try applying glaze thinner next time, as the bucket of glaze was too thick (resulting in the runny look over the design).

But several studio glazes have been having pin holes, and it's a headache.  If you know of solutions, let me know, please! blackmtnbarb@gmail.com or send a comment below.

This test came out more to my liking...not just my learning how to not do things!  I will try again with thinner glaze, but I wanted cobalt blue, satin finish, and perhaps this will work for my needs.

Today has been very tiring for me...what with our first TailGate adventure of the summer.  It went well enough, and as always was a lot of fun to see old friends for "catch up," as well as meet some new ones.  The 4 hours is pretty short, but standing in the cold damp outside gave my old bones some complaints.  I'm trying to tell them (bones) to shut up, we were really fortunate not to be rained (or hailed) upon, and the sun actually came out the last half hour...and the other thing my bones need to remember is that summer Saturday mornings will often be very hot.

I am very grateful that I have been asked to be a volunteer at the BMCA studio so we can have more hours available (Thurs 1-3 pm) for working on our clay creations (not on firing kilns or mixing glazes however).  As I'm currently a student, this is exciting for me.  I just finally caught up with glazing things after 3 weeks of creating, and need to get in there and throw some more.  Perhaps tomorrow.

This weekend is swamped in Black Mountain with great activities.  Today there was a plant sale downtown...which has really good deals.  I intentionally avoided spending there, because I'm a real sucker for pretty plants. 

And tonight there's a slide show which should be enjoyable about Transylvania, where my UU church (here in BM) has a "sister/partner church."  I love people's travel pictures, as long as they aren't just "here's Shirley standing in front of...and here's Shirley standing besides..." as you already know. 

This weekend is our big music festival LEAF, which I'm not going to do.  Tomorrow I want to see some of the East of Asheville Studio Tour (which was also today, but I just couldn't fit it in).  That will have to be after a long church time, with choir before the service, and annual meeting afterwards.  Oh well, gotta do your volunteer time to keep organizations like this going strong.  I depend upon them to be there for me...so I'll give what I'm able.