I know it's Winter but...

...my Sturt Desert Pea is flowering already with a good month left until Spring arrives. It's the first year I've had one of these and I'm super impressed. It has been grafted to give it more chance of success.

In other un-pottery related news, we did a flying visit to the Melbourne Zoo on Friday filling in time before the wwe Raw event (I'm a woman of many interests). We literally ran through the zoo to get to the flight aviary being huge bird enthusiasts. I have a female eclectus parrot

so I was very excited to see a male eclectus parrot! He was looking inside a hollow in a tree and we said "Look, he thinks there might be a girl in there."

And we sure were surprised when we realised he was right.

He ended up flying over and landing right next to us.

The joy!

Look!

I threw a pot!
This week Jayne taught me to throw and turn. I made three bowls. This is the my favourite out of the three. I am still in shock that I made it. No doubt a trained eye and hand could find faults with it but to me it is perfect.

Watch this space

Had my first lesson on the wheel today. Threw my first pot!

New glazes and a novel for potters

I found a glaze to suit the chickens I wanted to make. Chrysanthos brand, mid brown underglaze. These chickens represent our backyard chickens so one is slightly bigger than the other as in real life.

I also tried out Cesco royal blue full glaze...

Photo doesn't really do the colour justice.
And Cesco lavendar full glaze...

And I have just finished reading a novel that I would like to recommend to you all called A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. It is about a boy working for a potter in Korea in the twelfth century. Not only did I become totally absorbed in the story and the characters but the references to pottery techniques added extra interest.