Throw Sum Mo

    That title says it all!  I've really been trying to keep the ol' nose to the grindstone lately and turn out a fair amount of work.  I'm no where near full speed yet but I'm certainly doing better than I was.  Good enough that I applied to my first show for this year.  Next month in fact and....it's a 3-day show, so that just shows ya what a glutton for punishment I am.  No reason to start out slow, ya know?  Well, the show is one I used to do regularly and it was always profitable, and it's only 30 minutes away from home.  So....there you go.
    I also had to go through standards (a judging procedure) this week to reenter a fine craft guild I used to belong to.  They have one show a year that is usually VERY good and good to participate in for exposure.

    I threw for a few hours today and right towards the end I could tell I was getting tired.  My hands get tired a lot easier than they used to.  And then I actually dropped a mug.  Haven't done that in a very long time.  I only had 2 more to go to finish the board I was on, so after I finished those I said that's enough for one day.  It was time for supper anyway.

    I also managed to get a large load of dinnerware and mugs out to my stores before I started production for this show.  I was very glad of that.  Now I can just concentrate on doing for the show.  Well, I may be able to take a few more pieces in to the others.  This new color scheme/ design is selling really well.  I like it quite a lot myself.  I just need to come up with about 2 more color variations.

    I will straight way say this is a very poor example of my show booth but it was all I could scrape together at the time.  This show requires a LOT of documentation that each craftsperson actually makes what they intend on selling and this past week I have had to work my butt off to get photos of everything, even including my raw materials, and get it sent in, in a reasonable amount of time before the deadline.  And of course, they want at least one photo of your show set-up, so they can see you have the correct color/ type tent.  Well, it has been years since I did a show; I didn't even have a tent anymore.  What was left of it got taken to the scrapyard last year and my shelves are just a shambles (which is why I photographed it from this particular angle, lol!)  You can't see that they are not actually complete.  But they will be before the show time.  I had to get a new tent and round all this stuff up, including dragging out every last piece of pottery I could locate around here, set all this up in the yard before an impeding thunderstorm arrived, take photos and then get it all taken back down and put up.  I know it does not look great but it is basic and all there.  At showtime I will have a banner and more decorations for a more complete look.   The better your booth looks, the more people perceive your work to be worth.  It's all image, baby.  Haha!

    So, things are quite busy here but I'll try to have some more posts soon.  We have several new things going and things to tell about.  My fertilizing last month seems to be paying off as all the fruiting trees, shrubs etc. are getting loaded with baby fruit.  I'm excited about that.  I would love to be able to bake a real homemade cherry pie this year!!