I make a lot of “one off” stuff, so I’ve challenged myself to make pairs or sets of things.

I got close with these mugs. The key to sets, obviously, is weighing your clay. These both started as 10oz of Russian Red River clay.

Instead of pulling these handles, I rolled out some clay and cut and smoothed them to the size I wanted. They could have used some more smoothing, I think. BUT THEY MATCH!!!

To finish this year, I spent a whole month on mugs. Some of my favorite were these black clay mugs. I started with with 12oz of clay and cleaned up the edges and bottom when it was all wet with a handy shaping tool, just to save some time.

I used a stencil to guide me in making wax outlines of animals before dipping in glossy white glaze.

This was about 3lbs of LBM clay and a simple transparent glaze, which tends to fire with a bluish green hue. I’ve been using this large round rib which has helped get really pretty shapes and lines on the inside.

I gave this bowl to a graphic designer I work with and she sent me this nice email: