Busy weekend and the memory of rubbery beef in Moscow

My pork stew

Hello. How was your weekend? Ours passed quickly. I cooked pork stew for six servings and chicken soup for two servings, cabbage salad for six servings and pickled turnips. Mike baked his bread, and cooked my Pacific salmon and his breaded (unknown white!) fish for two servings each. You may think they are enough for whole week for us. Alas non! Mikes comes home at lunch time. So we often have proper meals twice a day. So it only lasts to Wednesday lunch time, I guess.

From right, Pearl's blizzard coat, Pearl's winter coat, Pearls raincoat and her teddy's jumper!  

We also did two laundry. One for dogs and one for humans.

Yesterday I trained dogs to walk together twice. Topaz had to wear a muzzle, as she has bitten Pearl when they found a cat and overexcited.

I also tidied up two drawers of my filing cabinet and found 7 expired credit/shop cards!! I also scanned my last year's planner. Mike contributed some vacuuming.  

We went a department store to collect an Iron ordered on Internet this afternoon. Delivery person seemed to have smashed previous order, which was a French skillet, (it looked like eclipsed moon!)  so we decided to collect it this time.

Mike also did grocery in Saturday morning. Well, I offered to do it in Friday afternoon, as I had spare time. But he insisted he would go. The reason? He said 'You would not buy things I like to buy!'. I said, 'Oh common, I usually grit teeth, and live with what you have bought.' But I had the second thought, and declared, 'As far as you buy, cook, and wash up, I will not complain.' Status quo was restored. It is a cheap price to pay, huh?

Topaz has new ears!

We also did several throwing. I like to make glazing sample with new clay, porcelain white stoneware. I bought 10KG bag, But, Geee, I found it difficult to throw. It is a bit like rubber. This clay reminds me of beef served in Moscow in 1980's. It was soooo tough that I could not chew it properly. How many times ever I chewed, my teethe never met. In the end, I gave up and classified as an 'inedible object'. There was also a small roundish green thing was served. I thought it was a kind of plum, but at close inspection, I recognised as an apple. Very tiny green one with no hint of redness. I often lament that apples in UK are so small, but no apples in UK are as small as that one. I felt depressed, and decided to skip this one too. I had a small chunk hard dry bread and tea. That was my dinner on that night, and thought about Russian people. It was years before The Wall fell.

So, getting back to the clay, I throw a thin tea cup, and waited until it became dry enough to turn it. But when I tried to turn, I crashed the lip of the cup... tears... I was dispirited. I invited Miked to try. He threw a small bowl that is going to be finally a glaze sample. Phew.

I am expecting this week will be less busy than last week. I guess I overdid this weekend. Now I need a day to recover from the weekend activities. See you!
 
 

Topaz ver.3 with curvy chest and apple tart.

Hi Everyone, Gotten rid of cold, and having busy working week with adrenalin rushing high, I have got lots of energy. I just can't stop doing things. I feel reborn! Well, I exaggerated a bit. Nonetheless, bouncy bouncy!

Here is the photo of another version of 'Topaz'. And this is not the latest one! You can see her tummy was tucked. So her chest line is more curvy. I created flaps at the join between hip and thighs. I also shorten muzzle as well. After this photo taken, I also changed her ears, and took photos of her, but the battery of the camera went flat. Ah-oh.

New version. 'Topaz'

I will show you her new ears tomorrow.

Close up of the head part.

Mike was busy baking (again!) This time, it is an apple tart with frangipane. The recipe of frangipane (almond cream) is from Raymond Blanc. It is very easy and delicious. If you love almond, you should try! I helped him with peeling, cutting and decorating apples.

Before

After

My new face cup

Hello everyone! There is new development in my life. It is moving very fast. So I am preoccupied with it since early this month. But, to relax a bit, I decorated the coffee cup Mike threw late last year. His intention was he would have decided how to decorate and done it over the holiday, and would have taken to class for firing on Monday, but decoration is not his strength, and of course he had this stubborn cold. So this cup remained blank until the weekend. So, I took over it, and painted like this!

Face cup

Side view

I love it! I haven't decided what to do with its handle part yet. Hair? Ear? Solid colour?

The Monday was the first day for ceramics course in this term. Louise who started last term, is our tutor. She was busy teaching pinching and coiling new comers. I had a chat with Bev and Helen; both are so friendly and good throwers. I am excited to be in the class again.  

Moomin sheep! and 10 minutes pasta sauce from scratch.

I changed him again! I wanted to make his tummy rounder, and neck slimmer. So I severed his head! and removed arms, and adjusted his waist line and neck line. How about that? Do you like him? I like him better. Then I made his arms lifted, just because he looks chirpier this way. Compare with yesterday's.

Sheep side

This paper flax porcelain clay is doing what it says it does. I attached bone dry to moist parts yesterday, and they seem ok. Today I reattached his head to body, that seemed fine, too. So far I am happy with it.

Sheep front

Next one is this. It stared something cute, and ended up with something, which Mike called 'spooky' lol! Oh well.

Penguin? Bird?

Spooky thing!

---Midori's very quick cooking corner----

Mike comes home and prepares lunch for both of us, although I work form home. Yes, I know I am very lucky. But today, the beginning of my holiday, I cooked lunch for a change. My cooking is very quick. It is pasta with bacon, garlic and cherry tomatoes fried in olive oil. There are two points you should follow, then you can't fail. First, buy very good quality bacon. Dry cured lightly smoked from outdoor raised pigs is our one. Second fry garlic until it becomes light brown. Well, if you could get ripe tomatoes, that makes a big difference, but in UK in December, we can't expect that.... Yummy!

Midori's 10 minutes sauce for pasta

Paper flax porcelain clay experiment

The last Sunday before Christmas was spent mostly cleaning parrot cages and house. We have three large cages, so it was a whole morning job, even though I started before breakfast.

After dinner, I tried to make a whippet, and failed. But I was eager to make something, so I added a body to 'Moomin whippet' I made last week 

Mooomin whippet found fleece body

Back side

This clay is called paper flax porcelain clay. According to Jane who recommend 'paper clay' to me, even bone dry parts can be attached to moist parts. So here is my experiment. As you can see from the image, the head part was bone dry; it is white. I attached the body to the head this evening to see what will happen. It felt to me fine. There was no peeling off, which happened when I used ordinary clay when it was too dry to be worked.  

Mike baked polenta muffins with Italian twist. Ingredients are ground almonds, polenta as well as other usual things.

Polenta, ground almonds and egg yokes

A bit gritty (intended) and they didn't rise much (because of heavy ingredients?), but taste was good. They remind me Madelaines. I ate three, and Mike tried to appear to be shocked for the third one, but he also ate three!

Our tree. Christmas is coming. Beaper the grey parrot, stopped whistling 'I wish your merry Christmas', even though that tune is his favourite. Typical! He usually starts after February.  

Our tree

A horn grew on 'moomin' and naughty Pearl

The chap I showed you yesterday became this. I will probably not fire him. I am trying to feel which direction I like to take, at this moment. So there are some experiments going on. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I have to make an effort to create at this moment. My hands used to move freely without me thinking, but now, first I have to think what I would do next.
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It's time to let you know what Pearl was doing today. In the morning, she got her neck stuck in the hole of her blanket (she chewed the blanket and made the hole), when the door bell rang (there were lots of visitors today, and this was the first one). She was actually standing on the edge of the blanket.

Then, this photo was taken this evening.

 

Rubbish were dropped everywhere.

You may not be able to see what is going on. Ok, here is a more clarified image. It is the photo of the crime with the evidence attached!

Self-rubbish-scattering system powered by Pearl

She must have helped herself into the rubbish bag in the parrots' room upstairs. When I called her for dinner, she came down with the rubbish sac attached around her neck! On the stairs and floors, seed husks and chewed paper were scattered everywhere. She didn't seem to be bothered with her new neck decoration though!

Another creature from Moomin world

Hi, everyone. I hope you didn't have much damage from the storm last night.

The head

This chap is my creation of this evening. I liked 'Moomin whippet' that I made a couple nights a go a lot, so I tried to make a bigger cousin. I enjoy making goofy off-beat character recently. Then I realised Mike is also goofy and off-beat too!

I didn't update yesterday, so here is yesterday's photo.

Pearl sleeps at night

And today's photo.

Pearl sleeps in the afternoon

Night night, everyone!

New lisitings to Etsy shop is failed by Royal mail!

Yesterday evening, I prepared a couple of listings for my Etsy shop. I am slowly getting used to how it really works.

I took some photographs of them, wrote descriptions of them, measured them up, and then went to Royal mail website to find out postage. Doh! The site was broken (and it is still broken after 24 hours.) They insist they can't find postage for my specific weight!!!

What I wanted to list were these cuties.

Chameleon-paper weight

This is about 13cm from mouth to tail. I used him as a paper weight at my Open House. His cheeky smile attracted several visitors. He is also Mike's favourite.

This is how he looked before bisque firing. The little one facing to him on the left is a brooch for sale on Etsy.

Chameleons in making

Short legged, long legged and horned chameleons

I made four little ones. None is same. The difficult part was attachment of legs. Funnily enough I make the tail part first. Secondly, face, third, body, and finally legs. Then I assembled them.

This is a little horned chap. As you can see his tail and body were supported until the clay became harder. And don't miss his adorable face!

My tail is heavy

Am I adorable?

I wanted to make a larger one, and made this one (below). As everything I make, inside is hollow. Unlike some clay artists, I make everything hollow from the start.

Well, as soon as Royal mail website comes up, I will figure out postage, and list him as well as other chaps on my Etsy shop. 

Chameleon medium size with drippy tail!

He is about 15cm long, and has a cute quizzical face. Any doubt? have look at this photo!

Quizzical? Moi?

New creamer and mug

Last night I threw a large creamer and a large mug.

This evening, I turned them and added handles. Ta-da. They are typical of my style with throwing marks and curvy profile. 

In the mean time, Pearl the whippet slept and dreamt. She sleeps about 23 hours a day with legs sticking out like this!