This morning my pieces from last week were semi-dry and ready for trimming. Trimming involves putting the piece back on the wheel, usually upside-down, securing it at the bottom with clay, and using tools like these to trim away excess clay, rough spots, and add details like grooves and feet.

One thing enjoyable about trimming is the immediate feedback with almost anything you do. You can quickly tell if your piece is not centered or if you are spinning to slow or if your clay is still too wet. It’s harder to tell if you’ve trimmed to far (ex. break through the bottom), but a quick tap let’s you know.

The other great thing is that when you do make mistakes, you can trim them away, provided that you don’t trim your piece away and that you are flexible with how the resulting piece will look.

I’m excited to glaze these guys:

I think they’ll get into the kiln this week and maybe I’ll do glazing next Saturday.

In the meantime, I threw a bit more today and made three small cups with the intentions of making a sake drinking set. The cups were extremely simple cup shapes and more an exercise in hand memory - could I make three cups of the same shape and size? Not really. I also tried making the sake bottle (about 15cm high, pear-shaped with very tapered top) but it did not work out. Maybe next week. I have to learn how to make a tapered top without the piece caving into itself.

Oh - and maybe you noticed the handle on my coffee mug. Yeah…that didn’t work. I tried to make it with the pulling method but did a number of things wrong. Next time. But that mug doesn’t really need a proper handle anyway. It’s more a cup with both hands kind of mug ; )