Alignment

I used to have the worst trouble getting handles to line up. On anything that had paired handles--casserole, crock, cookie jar--or even a few that didn't, like batter bowls, I just couldn't get the handles lined up across from each other. I'd eye-ball and mark and attach and pull and two times out of four, the handles were closer together from one direction than the other. Drove me nuts.

Then one year, Local Clay, our Eugene potter's group, sponsored a workshop by Ellen Currans. She's a long-time Oregon potter, founding member of the OPA, and made a lot of two-handled platters, servers, baking dishes. And she had a lovely, simple system for positioning the handles.

She'd make a paper template the same diameter as the pot, usually by taping the sheet to her potter's wheel and pencilling in the circle, then cutting away the excess. She'd then fold it in half, mark where fold met edge, then flatten it out and refold a couple of inches off the original fold, mark there. Putting the template over the top of the platter or dish made it easy to determine where to place the handles so they'd be exactly opposite one another. Since she was a production potter too, she had dozens of templates in all different sizes, so she always had on to match the next pot. She even made nifty little handles out of scotch tape, to make it easier to lift off the template when done.

I've adopted the system wholesale, taken it a step further: I have templates on the computer that I can size and print onto card stock with the relevant diameters pre-printed. And since I have box tape in the studio, I do the handles as well.

Here's a few of my handle templates, and a small covered crock about to get marked and handled. Honestly, I'm still amazed I never figured this trick out for myself.