Fired Up

Well friends I had an eventful week last week!  I ended up in the hospital (long story) unexpectedly after my doctor called me at 10pm on Tuesday and suggested I go to the ER.  The short story is that they did admit me to the hospital (much to my surprise and unpreparedness) but didn’t find anything interesting.  They did cover me all over in adhesive tape (which is listed along with latex as one of my allergies) so that after I left I broke out in rashes.  (I guess I can consider that a party favor!)

When they finally discharged me at 5pm on Wednesday I had to scramble to pack for our weekend at PAX!  Mark and Erin flew in from out of town while my mom watched Julius and Patricia.  We had so much fun!!!!  I’m so sad it is over already.  The highlights were these mini puzzle rooms (that were a bit too easy for us puzzle experts), a fun D&D adventure, lots of board games, some video games and seeing lots of friends!  Oh and the theme was 80’s computers, so Will and I naturally had to get merch!  It’s the first year I’ve waited in the merch line but I’m glad I did because now I’m the proud owner of a PAX microcomputer shirt.  (And even better Will has an evil wizard hoodie!  Sidenote: I only recently realized I might have married an evil wizard and I’m not upset.)

On Sunday I slept like half the day due to sheer exhaustion but then Julius and I decided to do some pottery painting.  Okay, to be honest my reason for going to the pottery place was that I had to pick up some pottery I had already painted, but what’s wrong with more pottery painting?  This pottery painting studio is HUGE.  They have two floors, tons of options for pottery and colors, and give you free range to do what you want.  I found them because they have a stoneware painting class.  Stoneware is a mid fire pottery where you can use mid fire glazes that do all sorts of fancy things in the kiln.  I’m obsessed with the sort of asymmetric dripping glazes that you see on high fire pottery and really wanted a set of new pasta bowls.

The pasta bowls my aunt Ruth gave me 12 years ago when Will and I got married are heavily used and on their last legs.  (If I’m being honest I’m down to just 3 pasta bowls total, and the remaining bowls look pretty shabby.)  I couldn’t find any I liked when I got new dishware a couple years ago.  The new plates and bowls used a reactive glaze which they advertise as being random and unique on every piece, but I was a bit disappointed when I got them.  They were much more uniform than they looked on the website.  I still love them, but decided to look on Etsy for some bowls instead.  Holy moley, individual bowls on Etsy are expensive!  Despite the price I still didn’t see anything in the size I wanted (I guess most people call “pasta bowls” “dinner bowls” or “meal bowls”).

This is when I started calling pottery places.  I decided I could paint my own bowls for the same price as ones I could buy off Etsy.  Not only could I pick the color scheme I wanted, but I’d get to play around with paint.  Most of the places I called were generally confused that I wanted to buy 6 of the same bowl.  Clay Time on the other hand was super helpful and over the phone measured a bunch of different bowls for me, and even set 6 aside.  Of course when I got there the bowls they set aside didn’t seem very large… and instead I chose some larger bowls that were labeled as “serving” bowls.  I now realize that I probably need to cut down my carb intake.

I did a test run on my first bowl during the stoneware painting class I took and it came out AWESOME.  I cannot take full credit for the awesomeness.  I followed an example that one of the owners had; I just picked a different color scheme.  I planned to return 2 weeks later to paint the rest but came down with a fever on the night of.  I was extremely sad since I’d planned the whole week out so Will could watch the kids (and it was a day I wouldn’t have to work late).  Instead I ended up going there on a Friday night (which happened to be the stoneware class night again) but I asked them to put me far away from anyone in case my work called.  (We were once again all working late.)  It ended up working out for me because I was able to take up an entire table and assembly line create 5 more bowls (with some slight tweaks from the original bowl to account for how far things dripped etc.)

I’m going to put the recipe here for if I ever need to make some more of these bowls!  The glazes they use are Mayco Stroke & Coat.  I forget what cone they fire to, I’ll have to ask.  (Guessing 6 based on the Mayco pictures.)

This doesn’t seem like a serving bowl, right?! Or do I really just eat too much pasta?

Lexi’s Definitely Single Serving Pasta Bowls

• Mayco SW134 Eggplant
• Mayco SW156 Galaxy
• Mayco SW 110 Oyster
• fan brush
• liquid wax resist and a disposable brush, or brush dipped in soap.

1. Sponge entire piece off with water to make sure no debris is on the surface.
2. After dry, apply a thin ring of liquid wax resist on the bottom of the piece 1/4″ from the bottom. Let dry.
3. Dip fan brush in water, then squeeze out extra between two fingers so brush is damp but not wet.
4. Paint the bottom inside of each bowl with Oyster.  Make sure to apply more paint whenever the brush starts to drag.
5. Let dry.  Paint 2 more coats of paint, letting dry between each coat.
6. Paint the inside top half of bowl with eggplant. (Overlap the oyster slightly.)
   

   Here’s my assembly line process. I’m working on the top inside layer.

7. Let dry.  Paint 2 more coats of paint, letting dry between each coat.
8. Paint the bottom half of each bowl (up to wax resist) with Oyster.
9. Let dry.  Paint 2 more coats of paint, letting dry between each coat.
10. Paint outside top half of bowl with eggplant.  (Overlap the oyster slightly.)
11. Let dry.  Paint 2 more coats of paint, letting dry between each coat.
12. Apply a thick 1.5″ wide band of galaxy where the eggplant and oyster overlap on the outside and inside of bowl, loading it up with crystals. Let dry.
    

    Note I made the band on this one a bit higher because I didn’t want the drips to go so far down the side of the bowl this time.

    

    

    It is going to make me happy everytime I eat out of one of these.

    

    Why yes I can make you some! ;)

    

    Check out my stack of new dishes.

    

    Want to know what I painted this time?  You’ll just have to wait and see!