Lorena H

Taken from above, looking down, there is a dark-colored gopher tortoise sitting still, front legs and head sticking out of the shell.

The dogs have a new tormentor who likes to hang out on the safe side of the fence and look all tough as they bark at it.

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." - Stephen King

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." - Stephen King

A selection of ceramics just out of their glaze firing, spread out on a stone stoop. The majority of the pieces are bowls, but there are a few berry baskets and a couple of mugs as well.

What a kiln firing! I'm either over the moon about a piece or have already started overglazing because I'm unhappy. Guess which is which? I'll tell you what, though, not getting overglazed is that amazing brown bowl! That new-to-me technique blows me away!

A shot of the night sky;clear, dark, and full of stars. The roof of a house and tops of trees can be seen at the bottom of the photo. The sky has a weird greenish tinge.

I should be inside getting some work done on my website, checking for outdated photos and tweaking some listings... But y'all, look at that sky! Those stars! How can I not stay out here and admire them?

My dogs love cow kneecaps (warning: STINKY) and also filled bones - they usually only go for the filling, so they can be refilled with peanut butter and frozen for multiple uses. Those things can distract them from cats, or anything else, for a good half hour. Good luck! Let me know how it goes!

Tall baby gates! They're great for letting animals see and smell each other but out of tooth and claw range. I have a few. One of which also has a cat door in it, that can shut and lock if need be. Also redirecting or refocusing the dog with something they love and will focus on, like frozen treats!

How much do you think it would cost to have someone just follow me around all day and remind me "why did I come into this room" and "what was I working on, again"...?

Three animals laying together on top of the lap of a person sitting on a brown couch. Farthest away is a German Shepherd; middle is a three-legged black and white Terrier mix; closest to the person is a black cat who has some Sphynx in her background.

The staff members who nap together …. uh …. snap together? Rest together/nest together? Lounge together/… uh… what rhymes with "lounge"??? ANYWAY. I'm trying to tell you that my staff wishes you a snuggly weekend. Even if they are the laziest employees ever!

I tried to try that, but I'd need six hands - me, laying both arms on the board pushing it forward; someone else guiding the rolling pin so that it moved smoothly just in case it and the board didn't get along; and someone else to help pull the board because I'm too short to really roll it very far.

The thing is tho I'd have to cut the sides of the foam on a curve, so that I didn't get a thick line on the back of the piece - because cleaning that, flattening the line out, would destroy the impression of the snowflakes along that line. Sigh. It's a process.

Oohhhh, I know that well - the German Shepherd has a high prey drive but she has learned pretty quickly about BOUNDARIES because my cats don't play! I mean, they do play, but they don't like to play rough unless they're doing the rough to someone else, haha. Good luck, I hope it goes well!

I'm not happy with either of these, and in fact they're still sitting right there, while I decide if I want to go ahead and fire and glaze them, or smash them up and reclaim the clay.

Two clay pitchers, dried, waiting to be fired in the kiln. Both are textured with snowflakes, but different styles. The pitchers are the same size and shape, but have a little bit of a different design around the upper middle. They are on a wooden shelf.

Scenes from a work day (with apologies to Shakespeare). "Two pitchers, both alike in dignity, / In fair HaldeCraft Studios, where we lay our scene, / From Laguna clay textured to two snowflakes, / Where messy clay makes messy hands unclean"….I got nuthin', ya'll.

@edmondsscanner.bsky.social on Bluesky Be yourself. Be helpful if you can. Be insufferable if you have to. Be as dark as you wish. Be the reason a forest is considered haunted. But most of all, be kind and stay weird.

Stay weird, my friends!

@just-jack-1.bsky.social on Bluesky I don’t have unlimited toilet paper in my own house. Must be nice.

... I want unlimited toilet paper, that stuff's getting pricey! 😕

A clay pitcher being handbuilt. This is a closeup of the handle, focusing on the "H" stamp at the bottom of the handle. The texture of the pitcher is a variety of snowflakes. In the background, but blurry, is a shelf of glazes.

Scenes from a work day; H marks the spot.

Center my hands in the middle and press down hard? That almost makes the sides deeper and the middle lighter! This shown is by holding my hands about an inch in on either side of the pin (not the handles) and, whelp, I think you can see where I'm going with this…

Follow along for the rest of the week while I go over what worked and what didn't….

For instance, I love, love, love this texture. But for the LIFE of me I can NOT get a good deep roll of it! Hold it by the handles? Good edges, light texture in the middle.

A slab of clay rolled out and textured, on a messy pottery work table. The rolling pin, snowflakes, is right above the slab. The slab has inconsistent texture. Templates for what's being handbuilt are off to the left.

Y'all watched me make a LOT of Halloween/Day of the Dead ceramics. You watched me make a handful of Thanksgiving ceramics. What other holiday are we missing? Oh! Christmas. I've had some wins and some losses while trying to make Christmas ceramics.

What are you working on/reading/listening to/watching/making this week?

Asking myself what worked in the last year, what didn't work, what do I want to continue into the next year or not continue or new things I want to start. It's weird, being your own boss. On one hand, nobody can tell you what to do… on the other hand, there's nobody who can tell you what to do.

A laptop and a pile of notebooks on a gazebo table, with out of focus nature in the background. Also on the table is a bottle of water and a canned margarita. Don't judge. ;-)

Works in Progress Wednesday! This week, in addition to the usual handbuilding/yarn club dyeing/painting and glazing bisque/trying to find time to make soap… I'm also taking a look at the last year, and going over my "business stuff."

Tired of being tired all the time I'm almost certain I've written a somewhat similar title, probably within the last year or so. In the last three years? Who knows. Time is WHACK right now, y'all. I'm not just talking about the emotional drain and tiredness from the deaths that have peppered my life the last five years. This time I'm specifically talking about last year, when I had Septicemia in May, and Covid in August. I was really, really lucky that I didn't lose an organ when I had Septicemia. And I was really, really lucky that I was traveling with all of my asthma medicine when I got Covid in England/Scotland, and could get what I didn't have at Boots.

Tired of being tired all the time; a rant about health

A German Shepherd and a black and white Terrier mix sitting on different locations on the same brown and white couch, both looking away from the camera to the window off to the left. Both of them have their ears perked up as if having just heard something.

Don't let the attentiveness to whatever they heard outside fool you… I'm pretty much required to spend an hour every morning as heated furniture for these girls while they lounge on the couch (and me) and pretend like they haven't just been sleeping all night.

Four clay mugs in the process of being handbuilt. All of the parts of the mugs are separated and spread out on a pottery work table. There are four slabs rolled around tubes to keep their shape, four handles draped over a rolling pin, and the bottoms of four mugs. Various tools are spread around.

Scenes from a work day; mugs, some assembly required.

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first the must catch you, differ, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed." - Richard Adams

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first the must catch you, differ, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed." - Richard Adams

From the top down, looking into a kiln, four dark green Christmas trees have been through their final kiln firing.

And here those Christmas trees are, finished! See what I mean about the dry glaze looking light brown, but after it's fired, it's dark green? One man's science is another man's magic. I still have the bases to fire but hopefully I'll have these up and listed end of next week!

A German Shepherd standing over a calico cat, who is in the process of turning over onto her back and reaching up to touch the dog.

Honey Butter and Newt hope that some time this weekend you get to hang out with a friend that you used to be a little afraid of but now can't get enough time with.

Looking top-down into a kiln, four glazed Christmas trees are ready for their final firing.

Scenes from a work day; the Christmas trees are all glazed and ready to fire! This is one of those "I love how glaze lies" moments, also, because although they look light brown, they're going to fire to a deep green.

Four blue mugs, stacked on top of a kiln. Two mugs say "Apple Cider" and two say "Hot Cocoa."

Somehow in between making the September Patreon ceramics and the October ones, I forgot that I made the text on the September medallions blue… and I made these in the colors that I was making the Thanksgiving ones. Honestly, I think it works better than the blue! I hope the Patrons loved them.