Its that time of year....

It is definitely autumn (although the temperature yesterday was trying to fool us). This month we have been able to have our pumpkins out on display.
The Pumpkins are one of my favourite things that we make. If you haven't seen them yet....

 

 

 

Halloween is coming upon us very quickly and these are proving as popular as ever. So If you want to get your hands on them they are available at Dedham Arts and Crafts Centre or Creatively Crafty in Manningtree.

 

The pumpkins start out as a pinch pot (I will try to take some photos at some point of the potter making something like this) they are left to dry out until leather hard (so not fully dry but dry enough to hold their shape) and then carved just like a real pumpkin! They have a hole at the back to put the candle in, and are painted yellow inside so they have a spooky yellowy orange glow when the candle is lit

The Gourd is painted green inside and looks amazing when lit!

 

We also have some mini pumpkin Tlight holders which are 2D pumpkins and perfect for putting on the table for your Halloween party. You can see them lurking unlit in the top picture under the stand with the large pumpkins on.

 

 

The potter has returned from her holiday, confirming my belief that Stoke on Trent is the centre of the UK. It doesn't matter where she goes on holiday she always manages to come home "via" Stoke on Trent!! It just happens to be the "home" of pottery and the location of one of our stockists. So yes that means she went shopping!!

Just as well we are doing lots of shows in November......

Check out where we will be http://www.embarpottery.co.uk/aboutus.html

Changes at Embar Pottery

No I haven't gone away, I have just been busy! and the potter is on holiday and hasn't been reminding me (hassling) to get the blog done!
The last month has seen some major debating going on in the Embar Pottery camp, which has finally emerged as a decision, and it has been about credit card machines.

As anyone who has seen us out at a show knows we have a portable credit/debit card machine which allows us to take card payments for things when we are in the middle of a field.
It looks a bit like this....


However we have to pay a (high) monthly charge for the privilege of having this machine, as well as a per transaction charge,  which makes its worthiness a little debatable. The months when we do a lot of fairs (May - Aug) it pays its way absolutely fine. Its the months when we don't even switch it on (Jan/feb etc) but we still have to pay the monthly charge that the debate starts.

A number of different companies have started to produce a new style machine which has no monthly charge just the per transaction charge. This seems perfect for businesses like Embar Pottery where some months we will use it a lot and others not so much. There is however some downsides to this (hence the debate).
1) They look nothing like a traditional portable card machine so will customers be happy to use it?

2) They link up via an app on your mobile and then use your mobile data to connect up (the customers card details are not stored on your phone tho, its all encrypted by the machine)
The problem with this is that if you get no signal in the field you can't use it.
The traditional card machine has a roaming sim card so connects to whichever network it can find.
The other problem is if you have a smartphoneophobe in your midst who is worried about using a smartphone!
3) The per transaction charge is higher than the traditional machine

So after much debating where for a while the only decision we could make was that we definitely needed to have the ability to accept card payments we have taken the plunge.
We have cancelled the contract on our old machine and the new one has arrived. So bear with us if you see us out at any of our November shows. Its new, It will take some getting used to!
Our locations for November shows are now on the website so check it out http://www.embarpottery.co.uk/aboutus.html

A Creation

We are at Sandringham Craft and Sculpture show this weekend http://www.livingheritagecraftshows.co.uk/show/the-sandringham-craft-sculpture-art-fair/59.php where as is standard protocol for shows this season it appears to be raining!!

Never mind! The Potter is keeping her chin up by making lots of fab creations. Today has been Green Man making day so I thought I would share with you the making process.

We start with a scrunched up bit of old newspaper!

 

I say WE, but this is the royal "we" as I actually have more of a supervisory role!! Anyway the scrunched up bit of newspaper helps to form the shape of the face, making it protrude without having to add layers of clay, which would make the face both very thick and heavy. Both problems, one as very thick clay takes forever to dry out and causes cracking in the kiln and the other as it becomes very heavy so is more difficult to mount.

 

Once the clay has formed the base shape the potter starts to add facial features.



The potter has just looked over my shoulder at these pictures and told me not to include this one as the face looks "really odd" but I thought I would as it shows the progression the face makes from just flat clay with a small mound in the middle to a face. Each of the facial features are added individually and moulded into the base clay.

Once the face is complete (this is where I usually stick my head over the potters shoulder and tell her the nose is too big/small! or she should add a moustache!) The leaves are added.

The features at this stage always seem quite exaggerated, but once the leaves are over the rest of it, they seem to fade into the background a little.

And "ta dah!" a finished creation. Tomorrow the clay will be leather hard and the potter will scoop out some of the extra clay where it was added to make the features to keep a more consistent thickness throughout.

 This plaque along with the others made today (including one that looks a bit like a pirate.. complete with goatee and a colonel mustard moustache!) are going to be fired (in a week or so when they are fully dry) and then we intend to Raku fire them.

We are hoping it will be a bit dryer tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Frog vases

So we are back from the garden show and it didn't rain (woo hoo!) however have you ever heard the phase "you should be careful what you wish for" ? as instead of the predicted thunderstorm we cooked very slowly in sweltering heat!!

Never mind! I have a day off today, before we set off tomorrow for Sandringham Flower Show (the show is on Wednesday but it is set up day tomorrow).
http://www.sandringhamflowershow.org.uk/

We had a couple of our new line trials with us this weekend and one in particular seemed to be a success and that was the Frog vases. No not (as I first thought) vases shaped like frogs! but vases with frog pins in them.

In case you were wondering a Frog pin is the heavy metal spiky thing that you see flower arrangements made in......

One of our friends who does lovely flower arrangements took pity on the Potter when she was setting up (without me!) and did a mini arrangement in one of our new designs (using some supermarket bought flowers) and they looked brilliant.
And to be fair made them look approachable even to the least floristry minded like myself. (I was taking notes as I have a feeling the Potter may be asking me to do this in the future!)

This must have been a thought that resonated with our customers as we sold all but the ones with the flower examples in. The Potter has added more frog vases to her list of jobs for the next couple of weeks! Unfortunately there is no way of making them ready for Wednesday, so we will have to keep them in mind for next week.

I know you are all desperate to see a picture now.........

 

 

Sorry the picture is sideways! That seems to have been happening to a lot of my pictures today. Mondays are obviously sideways days!!

 

The Frog has 2 functions. It is heavy so stops the vase from falling over when making it top heavy with flowers, and it holds the flowers upright without the need for tall sides to the vase.

 

I realise that my picture mostly focuses on the flowers, but the vase itself is leaf shaped. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of them on their own to show you, but we had 2 different shaped leaf patterns decorated in a variety of colours.

I will get some pictures of the next batch to be made.

House Names

A few weeks ago we were asked to make a round house name sign. We have been making house names signs for many years and they are something that the potter enjoys making.

We started out making rectangular signs such as this very early example:

At this stage we were also having a very high fail rate with the signs cracking in the kiln. We quickly discovered that our mistake was how we positioned the sign in the kiln. Poor air circulation around the sign meant that it fired quicker on one side than the other and caused the cracks.

Once we had worked that out our fail rate was dramatically reduced to (touch wood) almost none. Looking back we really had no idea what we were doing and were figuring it out as we went! Kiln loading particularly seemed like a dark art where you had to work it out for yourself what worked and what failed!

Other things like if you pack items close together or far apart, it changes the colour of the glaze were also discovered during these early days! Thankfully we have got the hang of it these days so we have a better idea of what is going to come out of our kiln when we open it!!

Anyway back to name signs...... We moved on from rectangular signs to oval signs as the potter became more adventurous with her designs. The oval signs left much more space for decoration, and the signs became much more detailed as a result.

I am glad to say that the rectangular signs have also moved on in terms of decoration from those early days!

 



When we were asked to make a round sign, we spent some time debating what would be the right size for a round sign, to leave space for some decoration in the middle. The client we were designing a sign for liked the idea of the central design (rather than just a border design like the rectangular signs) so we needed to leave space for that.
We settled on a sign that is approx 30cm in diameter. We liked the one we made for that client so much we have decided to add round signs to our official list of options (www.embarpottery.co.uk/housesigns.html)
This is an example plate that the potter made at the last show we were at, so we could show people an example of a round sign.

 

 

Ta dah! as you can see it came out rather well. Of course what I was supposed to be doing with this picture is adding it to the website page before we go out to our next show this weekend not writing a blog post about it, So I must get to that...........

 

If you are interested this weekend you can find us at the Marks Hall Country and Garden Show at Marks Hall, Coggeshall Essex (CO6 1TG)



http://www.markshall.org.uk/things-to-see-do/events/marks-hall-country-garden-show/
We shall be there rain or shine (hopefully shine... pleeeeeeese!)

It keeps on raining at all our shows!

The rain is a persistent devil! It seems that Embar Pottery at a show is a sure sign of rain. Tomorrow we are going to the Grundisburgh Art and Craft fair. A late addition to our show schedule as we had a weekend free and thought we would fill it with something local. However I have seen the forecast for tomorrow.......  ...... So it looks like our run is going to continue!

The last show we did was the Garden Show at Abbotts Ripton Hall. While it was raining (and thundering!) we had a trial of laying our stand out differently.

Although you can't see where my seat is (its on the left between the two tables) For the first time this season I haven't been hiding behind the house numbers board where I can't really see or speak to people. I have no idea if that made a difference of if it was a fluke, but in spite of the rain we had a better show, which made the potter very happy.......

..... although maybe less happy about having her photo taken! She was hard at work here making a winter lady (we sold the last one I told you about).

We also took the birdbaths out with us. In a previous post I took photos of them in the garden (on a sunny day) They made a statement on our fake grass stand as well!

They look a bit shiny as I had to take the photo with the flash on (all the black clouds made it a bit dark in the marquee!)

Fingers crossed the forecast I have seen for tomorrow is wrong and we have a lovely sunny day.

New ideas

It has been ages since my last post. We have been busy trying to dry out after our last show (at Woburn abbey where we got a bit wet!!) and feeling generally a bit disheartened (rain will do that to you).
Anyway today it is sunny and long may it last as we are at a garden show next weekend at Abbots Ripton http://www.abbotsriptonhall.co.uk/ Fingers crossed for some good weather, we will be there whatever but it does boost the moral slightly when you are not soggy!

Some of the plants I have been growing for the occasion are looking fabulous, and hopefully someone will love them at the weekend.

The potter hasn't been moping about the weather (well maybe a little) but has been busy experimenting with new things, I am going to give you a sneak preview of one of them. It isn't even fully dry yet......

 

So its a frog.... actually I think it might be a toad..... sitting on a lily pad. (My photo was photobombed by Gladys who sneaked into shot when I wasn't looking!)
This is the side shot....

 

 

So the toad could be decorational for the garden (next to a pond maybe) but he does have a hole in the top which the potter thought could be used for this.......

 



.... a solar light. I will update you with some pictures of it once it has been fired and glazed, and we shall see how he comes out. He is looking like a sentry in the last picture so maybe you need to have 2, one on either side of your front door!

Updating

I thought I would use today's post to update you on a couple of  things I have been talking about over the last few weeks.

Firstly fairy doors. It turns out that it isn't just the Embar Pottery imagination that loved the fairy door idea! After the Penshurst show we had sold out of our show stock, so we raided our Dedham unit and sold out of those during our the Hatfield show! So the potter has been very busy preparing more fairy doors for our next show which is next weekend at the Woburn Abbey Country Fair http://www.livingheritagecountryshows.co.uk/show/the-woburn-abbey-country-fair/55.php

These doors are all mid way through the glazing phase. It is always a bit difficult to tell what they are going to look like when finished as the glaze is nothing like the colour it is when fired. The edges will be green (not brown) the Mushrooms red (not brown) the cute little deer will be fawn (not dark brown) and the backgrounds are all different speckly colours (not white!!) You often just have to trust what the pot says and run with it. Occasionally you get a surprise when you open the kiln!

A few weeks ago I suggested in this post that the Potter should make a new Green Lady plaque at the one of the shows. The Potter did this, and the green lady is now out of the kiln and looking lovely.

 

The potter also made a hairy male companion to the Green lady! who is quite a cheeky chappy!!

 



Cone Planters

I thought I would introduce one of our new lines this week. Those who have visited us at one of the shows we have done already this year will have seen our new shape planters.

For the last few years we had been making the green man wall planters which were flat at the back with a curved bowl at the front and a green man face on the front.

At the end of last year we decided to have a change (You have to mix things up a little!). The design we agreed on was a cone shape.

Possibly not shown off to its best effect against a pink wall!! But a cone shape with a hole in the bottom (for drainage) and an ivy pattern. We also tried a smooth version which we glazed.

We really liked the glazed effect so in the end we went for the 2 types, the smooth glazed and the ivy patterned sandy textured planters. So far they have received a positive response, although there has been a few people missing the green man style!

Apologies for the slightly sick looking spider plant used in the following pictures! We have been using pansies in our show displays instead this year as some spider plant rescue has been necessary!

The potter has been busy making some more of these so we will be fully stocked for our next outing!

 

We will be exhibiting at the Shotley Penisular crafts event over the May bank holiday weekend (and the potter will be there Sunday and Monday demonstrating)

 





http://www.shipwreckpub.co.uk/peninsular-crafts-bank-holiday-weekend/

 



Setting up a show

This weekend (just gone) we spent at the Living Crafts Show at Hatfield House. It was a good show with lots of good quality crafts on offer, unfortunately ruined by the atrocious weather (very windy and rainy) which put people off from coming so it was quite quiet.

We set up the show on Wednesday afternoon and the show was open from Thursday to Sunday. We usually set up for these big shows the day before and I thought I would take some pictures to demonstrate why!!

This is what our space in the marquee looks like when we arrive. This show has posh marquees which have carpeting down on the floor. Some of them are directly onto the grass. The space was a bit lumpy so first job is to position the tables as we want them and put blocks of wood under the legs until they are flat and don't wobble! Next job is to set up the structure of our stand.

We have a metal framework which we hang curtains from and attach our lights to. There is 3 grid walls which are clamped to the back of the tables (and have netting draped across the front to disguise them a bit) and several wooden boards which a couple of years ago I made some matching covers for so you can hardly spot them! This all makes the back drop from which to show off the pottery.
Once we have got this far then the hard work begins. First we have to move all the boxes of pottery from the Van to the stand (and Pottery is heavy!) Then we spend ages deliberating on the best layout of the pottery that shows everything off to its best advantage. This is what we came up with this time out!



To the left of this picture we have another table where the potter spends the day demonstrating and making things.
As promised the potter made a new Green Lady Plaque as discussed in the previous post Green Men and now we are home and all dried out I thought I would show you. It is not fired or glazed yet but you can get the idea!

With slightly longer hair as promised!

Bird Baths

Every now and then, the potter has a flight of fancy and makes a series of unique pieces. Although we never make 2 things that are exactly the same and all our standard lines are made freehand, these pieces are designed to be stand alone and not repeated.

The most recent flight of fancy took the potter to make bird baths. She has made 3, and they are all a but different. Today I have taken advantage of the lovely weather to take some photos of them in their natural habitat! (the garden)

This has got round holes punched in the base and a lovely streaky blue glaze with a glassy effect finish to the inside.

This has a wintery theme to it, with fir tree cut outs from around the base and robins around the rim of the bath and a blue green colouring.

And last but not least is the clam shell shaped bird bath that has been dividing opinion! (a bit like marmite you either like it or hate it!) There is Ivy running up the back with a sneaky gecko making an appearance if you look hard for it.

These we will be taking to some of our more garden orientated shows such as the Abbots Ripton Hall garden show at the end of June.

Green Men

The start of the fair season and a website enquiry that we had last week, has got me thinking about Green Men. We started making Green Men a few years ago, and they have become a stable presence in our product range.

The nice thing about the green men, is that they all seem to end up with their own personalities! The potter makes them free hand, and they are a favourite demonstration make with the fair attendees as they like watching them develop, and often come past several times to see how they end up! I always say (although the potter denies this) that they end up looking happy or grumpy depending on the potters mood (and really moody if the weather is terrible and we are getting cold!!)

The website enquiry we had last week was about if we have ever made Green Women, and the answer is kind of!
The Green Man is a traditional pagan symbol for New life, rebirth and essentially Spring. Adopted as a Christian symbol later on to encourage pagans to convert, the symbol remained that of a Man.

A couple of years ago a lady that I got into discussion with at a craft fair, told me about the mythical Green Lady symbol ( I say mythical as there is almost no information about this available so it is unsure whether this was invented to even things up a bit!)
Certainly the pagans felt women were equal as the god of earth herself is a woman (Mother Nature?)
Anyway I was told that the Green Lady symbol was the opposite to the green Man, so where as he was Spring/Summer she was Autumn/Winter. Based on this information we made this lady.

 

She has Holly leaves instead of the Oak/Vine leaves of the Green Man. We have made a few of these since and they have all found new homes. We currently don't have one, so the potter is under instruction to make a new lady next week at the next fair. I think she needs longer hair though!

 

Why not come along and see how she is looking! Embar Pottery will be at the Weald of Kent Craft and Design show at Penshurst TN11 8DG from the 3rd to the 5th of May.



http://www.thecraftshows.co.uk/kent/spring/

First fair of the season

The first fair of the season started today and the potter looks (cold!) delighted to be photographed. She is using her time at the show productively, demonstrating her craft by making stock for the shows later in the season.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a lovely sunny day, so come and visit us at Framlingham Country Show (Held at Framlingham College, Suffolk, IP13 9EY) We will be there from 10 - 5.



I have taken some pictures of our stand, we usually end up with a reasonably similar layout at all the shows we go to. We have a grid wall which we can use to hang things from like the green men (peeking into the photo below) and our new conical planters (seen in the photo at the bottom).

The photo below shows our new two tier planter (which you got a sneak preview of before we had planted it out a couple of weeks ago) Its looking great with the plants in.

The conical planter is another of our new for 2014 ranges making it debut this weekend, which I will introduce in more detail in due course, indications so far is that these may be popular. The potter is intending to make one of these tomorrow while demonstrating.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow in the sun (hopefully sun, or at least a little warmer than today!). If you can't make it there are plenty more opportunities to catch up with us this summer, check out where we will be on our webpage.
http://www.embarpottery.co.uk/aboutus.html

Fairy Doors

Next weekend is the first fair we are doing of the year, so we are in full swing getting things ready. It is always chaos getting ready for the first fair of the year, as all the structure for our stand has been in storage since before Christmas. We have to find everything we need, combine it with the new things we have for this year and get it into some sort of order before we set off! I didn't think you would want to see our pile of boxes that is the "progress" for this week so I thought I would show you one of our 2014 lines.

Meet the Fairy Door

These little doors are for putting in a secret place, such as tucked on a skirting board or high on a bookshelf. They are for letting the fairies in and out of your house (connected naturally to the magic fairy kingdom on the otherside!)

This was a concept suggested to the potter at the end of last year, and she fell in love with the idea. All of the doors are different, all based on a arched wooden door (like you would imagine as the entrance to a walled garden) but with different windows and decoration, and in different colours.

We have had a small selection at our unit at Dedham Art and Craft centre for a couple of months, and it seems they are capturing the imagination of the visitors there, so we will be taking them out to the fairs with us as well.

Plants

Spring is definitely here. The clocks have changed, the daffodils look lovely, and the trees are starting to wake up. All this green and new growth gets us at Embar Pottery thinking about this years plants.

We usually get and grow a selection of plants for making our stand at the shows look nice, and also for planting in some of our pots. Its amazing how a few plants can change a pot.

(apology in advance, I got a bit carried away with the photos for this post!)

So I have planted some Gazania seeds, which according to the packet will have orange flowers and are currently this big...

 

I like to grow orange flowers to decorate our table with, as our colour theme for the stand is brown/cream, so orange looks really good.

I am also nurturing some baby spider plants, which provide a bit of spiky structure to our plant life

Here they are being admired by one of my chickens!

The potter has been busy making some new style planters which have a bowl at the bottom, and then in the middle there is a raised platform with a small bowl at the top, to give a layered effect to the plants.
This is the planter in progress, it will have the same sandy texture as our green men, after it has been fired.

 

The planter came out of the kiln this week, so is now ready for planting up. Last week, the potter and I went plant shopping and came home with these....

They are all rockery/container plants so they should look and grow beautifully in our new planter. The project for this week is to plant them out.

One planter that I have already planted out, as the plants are really quite little at the moment, and need to grow before they will look anything (bear that last comment in mind when you look at the pictures!) is the wall mounted green man planter.
This is a tall planter with a small bowl at the back, for trailing plants to grow out of the top like hair! and a small bowl at the front. Both bowls are connected to make watering more convenient (water the front and it flows through into the back as well!).
At the front this year is a geranium (which looks a bit lonely at the moment as it is so small, and the trailing plant has yet to make an appearance! but trust me will look fab when it has come on a bit)

This planter has four holes in the flat section beside the face, to screw to the wall, and looks great in the summer with hanging basket plants. As the trailing lobelia is not tall enough to grow out of the top yet, I have taken a picture of the back of the pot for you to see as well.

This planter will get to live in my greenhouse for the next few weeks, and I will put it up against something flat, to encourage the lobelia to grow up and over the top.
I will update you with more pictures of these planters, once the 2 bowl planter has been planted out and the green man wall planter has grown a bit!
Both will be coming with us, to the first fairs of the season, and hopefully will find homes that love them (so I get the opportunity to grow some more!)

The first show of the season is almost upon us The Framlingham Country Show 12th-13th April at Framlingham College
http://www.classicfestivals.co.uk/#!about/c1enr



Bird Feeders

The sun is shining, so the clay is drying and the Kiln is back in action! All this means it is full steam ahead in the preparations for our first craft fair of the year on 12-13th April
(http://www.classicfestivals.co.uk/#!about/c1enr)

Here at Embar Pottery, we do like to make practical things fun and decorative. Last year we started a new line of bird feeders. There were seed feeders and fatball feeders.

This is the seed feeder and below is the fatball feeder.

about half way through last year, we decided that we needed to make a smaller version of the fatball feeders, so we made a collection of small feeders with exactly the same design but which hold 1 or 2 fatballs instead of the 3 or 4 that these ones hold.
Both the large and the small fatball feeders were a success, and we have made a selection of new ones for this year.

Unfortunately the seed feeders were not as successful. We have been debating the reason why, and we have decided that one of the reasons people are put off them is that they are quite heavy. The large feeders are the same height as the large fatball feeders, but the fatball feeders have large holes cut out, so are about half the weight.

We have put our heads together and decided that we need to make the seed feeders smaller (thus reducing the weight) and have a rethink on the style of them, so for this year there is a new design of seed feeder.

The new design are much shorter with only one feeding platform, and have a pointy hood (not shown in this picture) to keep the seed dry.
They are going to be glazed in a variety of colours, and we shall see if they match the fatball feeders in popularity this year.