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