Officially done

Because we work right up through Christmas Eve, I've long since trained my family back in the midwest not to expect Christmas presents by, you know, Christmas. I figure if they can arrive by Epiphany (January 6, which also happens to be Orthodox Christmas), I'm doing good. Yesterday, I did this:

Yep, loaded up the car with boxes (still too snowy/slushy to bike) and took them down to the Post Office and UPS Store. I am officially done for the year. Spent the afternoon clearing out packing materials and scrap cardboard from the studio, and washed a load of clay towels so I'm ready to go back to work next Monday, but for now, I'm free. Officially off duty for the rest of 2021.

What am I gonna do with myself?

Specialty items

I have a customer who, I believe, is Chinese (her husband is certainly Russian, but that's another story), who commissions the most specialized stuff. It started with a replacement for the broken crock to an electric steamer. Since then, she's gotten... creative.

The most recent commissions were add-on crocks for an egg steamer (so she could steam eggs and rice at the same time) and a fit-in steamer for the carafe of a hot pot.

Matching the dimensions of existing forms with pottery is tricky; the clay shrinks as it dries, so getting the calculations right is crucial. Sometimes it works--the egg steamer add-on fit perfectly.

Sometimes it doesn't.

As you can see, the steamer is just millimeters too wide to slide into the carafe. I think it might have just fit, except for the bit of pink plastic at the top of the handle. So my first January project is to try again, and make it smaller.

Meanwhile, do you know what the steamer fits perfectly? My smallest Revere-ware saucepan. Slides in perfect, leaving an inch of space for the boiling water. Used it last night to steam broccoli to go with ground-turkey sliders and sweet-potato fries. It's just big enough for one head of florets.

Guess I'm keeping it.