Pendant Party

It's a pendant party, at least it felt like one while I was photographing all of these. This is the first time I've ever had enough fillers in a kiln load. There are always small spaces in a kiln where I think some small piece might fit to fully realize the potential of the fuel utilized in the firing.

The leaf pendants are made of stoneware and glazed on the front side only. The fern pendants above range in size from 3 1/4 x 1 1/4 down to 1 1/4 x 1 inches. The free form leaf pendants below range in size from 2 3/4 x 1 1/4 down to 1 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches. I made them thin so they are not heavy to wear. Folks rave about my leaf pendants. Most are signed with a star in a oxide pencil on the reverse but I forgot to sign a few of them.

As I was writing this post I had an idea. Ideas often come to me when I am typing a blog post. I could make textured mini tiles for mosaics as fillers in the kiln. I really like how the glazes break on some of these pendants and someone might like some mini tiles. So with my next group of work when I have left over slabs of clay I'm going to make some square mini tiles.

This last group were stained with oxides and under glazes on the front and backs and then I put a clear glaze over them on one side. These are approximately one inch each. On the heart pendants I put the hole in three different places. One woman told Gary the hole was in the wrong place and it wouldn't hang correctly. Gary didn't think to tell her that particular pendant was meant to be asymmetrical. Oh well.

I have some necklace cord on order and I am researching various clasps and pinch bails and the like. What type of clasps do you recommend to use for pendants with holes? Do you have a favorite supplier you use for jewelry supplies or findings? I hope to find a jewelry maker whom I can take a class on the uses of all the various findings used in jewelry.

The photo above is our raised vegetable bin. Gary built it with some concrete block he got for free. I have snow peas, radishes, red leaf lettuce, one marjoram, and one Greek oregano planted in there. The other day when we had freezing weather we put some heavy plastic over the bin and weighted it down with more concrete block and the vegetables were fine. Gary read in Mother Earth News that some folks fill the outer bin with dirt and plant their herbs there. I wish I had done that with my herbs, but here we only have sand so all our dirt has to be brought in, in bags which can be quite expensive. Coming up some smashing, a sad but true story, and a new edible fish. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.