Winter Blahs

THIS WINTER HAS BEEN YUCKY.  Maybe not everyone would agree with my statement, and that is OK.  You have the right to be wrong.  I've not been able to work on pottery much (nor have I been able to run or ride my bike regularly, but that's not a subject for this blog).  I've had yucky colds - TWICE now, and I don't usually get sick.  Between feeling crappy, the little bit of winter weather we've had, having a HUGE load at school this semester, and being distracted by family/wedding shopping trips that have needed to be taken, I've not spent much time in the studio.  When I don't go and work regularly, I lose focus.  When I do get there, I have no ideas.  If I try to throw, I'm out of practice and I can't center.  Blah, blah, blah, grump, grump!  

So, all that aside, I managed to do some good stuff this weekend.  I actually had a good throwing day on Friday, and there was much rejoicing.  (Yaaaay!)  I made the two yummy pots that were featured in my last blog post and threw the pieces for a covered casserole dish.  

That's a 4 pound bottom, three pounds for the lid (much of which will get trimmed away), and somewhere around 3/4 of a pound for the knob.  I did a really big knob this time hoping for something that looked really cool and was also functional - easy to grab even with oven mitts on and big enough to support that large lid.  My plan was to do some large handles for the sides of the pot to sort of balance out the over sized knob.  

Here it is all put together.  I'm not sure...the knob on top might be a little big, but I'm going to reserve judgement until after firing when it has shrunk down.  As it is right now, I'm imagining the need to remove all the extra racks from the oven if one needed to cook with the lid on.  So maybe the over sized handle on the top is not such a great idea, but it was so nice to feel productive again!  (Somebody please notice that I've learned how to put a watermark on my photos.)