Happy New Year and Updates

Set up for the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market Holiday Show in December.

Happy New Year to everyone and thank you for making 2014 a good year. We had support for fundraising to get our workshop/studio/barn building underway, great sales, and wonderful helpers for the kiln firings. I am happy to share that my blog was listed as one of the top blogs of 2014 through Pottery Making Info. I am especially grateful for this since I feel like I dropped the ball when it came to posting about halfway through the year last year. There really is something to be said for the term "pregnancy brain" I think and I certainly feel like about eight months of last year completely flew by.

There is siding on the back side now, and windows in all of the empty window wells.

I am also happy to share that the barn/workshop has been coming along. Since discontinuing work in the studio in November, the workshop and holidays sales became our focus. We now have a roof, most of the windows, some siding, and doors. Projects always take much longer than we anticipate, but it has been kind of fun to see my future studio slowly coming together and anticipating moving things out there by the spring.

My grandmother, me, and her future great-grandchild when I saw her in September of 2014.

The New Year rang in with a bit of a sad note when my grandmother passed away on New Year's Day. My first concrete memory of playing in clay was at my grandmother's house when I was very little. She had a steep hill behind her house that led to a creek bed. She told me to stay out of the creek, but of course, what child can resist? I would find myself clamoring along the creek and grabbing hunks of the rich blue clay that is in Southern Ohio. She would be slightly mortified when I returned from the clay banks, and made me keep my clay creations outside on the back patio. So, I have been thinking of her fondly on many levels, even in clay. Just so you know, the blue clay in Southern Ohio is not stoneware. I learned later in college that it is a rich, orange-red earthenware!   

The baby bump in December!

 Finally, as an update since I have been quiet on here for some time, the countdown to baby starts this coming week! I've been told that babies come between 37 and 42 weeks, and this coming week is 37 weeks. So, needless to say, this past month or so, has also been a lot of preparing for a new, small person to bring into our world. The baby's nickname at work has become "Kiln" and my favorite reference to me being pregnant thus far has been "one in the kiln" (as opposed to "one in the oven").  Here's to hoping the New Year brings wonderful things to you all, and that I hope to keep you all up to date on my research and pottery-making adventures as well as our forthcoming new family member!