FIRST ANNUAL OPEN STUDIO SALE (ten years in...LOL) PS: WE MOVED

December 10 and 11, 2016

10AM to 5PM both days

4695 George Road

Parking is limited so please park beside the post boxes on Wilmot and walk up the 50 feet to the studio.

This is such a different year from the last ten holiday shopping seasons. Since 2006 I have been ramping up to warp speed in September with frequent firings, pottery packing parties and endless driving to shows. (I can't haul enough pots for a craft fair on my bicycle trailer) This is the first year I have taken things easy and decided that I will remain calm and allow space for my little toddlers inside the craft fair show circuit. It turns out that that looks like one craft fair (Christmas Chaos under the big stick in Duncan) and an open studio sale. 

Knitting bowl dipped in glaze but not fired yet; neat light and shadow.

Since moving out to Cowichan Bay, I have fallen madly in love with my new studio space. I have several major differences that will finally allow me to host the open house at home. My old studio was inside three doors, which was fine but I didn't want to have customers in the way of the suite occupant. The new studio is larger in that all the sections are all together (previously I had a throwing studio/glaze area/gallery space/kiln space all separately) so I will strip out the extraneous studio equipment and put up a nice display in my working studio. The hall rental fees will be used on advertising instead so I can reach lots of people (the clements centre became unavailable a few years ago). 

An open studio sale can be really fun and it allows me to be active in the studio while the show is on so I can make a few pots or do studio chores. The best part is that I take 10% off all the pots in the sale! 

December 10 and 11, 2016

10AM to 5PM both days

4695 George Road

Parking is limited so please park beside the post boxes on Wilmot and walk up the 50 feet to the studio. 

New House, New Plans

We have successfully moved out to Cowichan Bay and into a new routine. I am making a few pots here and there but mostly I spend my time working with the relentless twin schedule. I have been up all but two nights since December of last year ( it's July) and still have to be awake and parenting our three year old by 7 am.  

The new home has a fully operational pottery studio rebuilt from deconstructed reused studio equipment from my last space and a brand new shiny kiln shed. There have been little bursts of pottery related effort and I still have a list of pots that folks have asked for but the studio has slowed down to a glacial pace. 

  

I have not been able to attend the Farmers' Market in July but should be back in August with a few pots.

Some are skeptical. 

Feel free to call for an appointment to pop by the new studio.

Can we find a home with a grandma and grandpa room?

So, we have lived in this house for 10 years. We bought it after a careful home inspection and consideration of the location and we have loved living here. I have been working (soooooooo many hours)  in my tiny pottery studio here. I have been working on the soil in my garden for the past decade. I have raised my son here and brought my tiny babies here for their first night out of hospital. 

Hubby came home a few weeks ago and said he had been wandering around on MLS and had found a super cute house in the village outside town (13 kms away) that he thought we should go look at. 

Odd, I thought, as we already have a lovely home and large yard and garden. We know which school our kids will go to and besides we had just paid Baker Plumbing (a small fortune) to renovate the main bathroom with a nice new tub, pipes, shower and finally gotten rid of the ugly orange paint! 

We called a realtor and went out to have a look at the Cowican Bay house (ironically on a day when the road was flooding and the mucky bank was schlupping into the sea possibly taking some homes with it)  Indeed, it is a very pretty house but unloved, in need of a super deep clean (like a LOT of clean) and a rentor to make it possible for us. And, what are we doing looking at houses when we have our family home, really? 

We listed our house and gave it a bit of a purge on the advice of our super cool friends whose home always looks really good. I love our home, my studio, the morning light in the master bedroom, my studio, the large laundry room, and the floors that vacuum and wash clean in under 30 minutes from one end to the other!! ....did I mention my studio....

I guess, if we sell, I will tidy up the lovely flower, vegetable and fruit shrub gardens that I have planted over the years and find my way to a new home. I like to shine up and love the home I am in. I was able to make it work with the tiny studio when we decided to share our home and now I love the little studio space. We moved the baby room around, the bunk beds, we built the perfect garage and tore up all the old concrete so we could put in a nice gravel driveway (btw crazy expensive to get rid of concrete junk). The house we want has a two car garage instead of the single we built three years ago so my studio would be all in the same space!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we will adapt and fall in love with a new house, clean or dirty, near or far, needing changes or ready to move into. The important part is that we all fit in there (I mean 'all' of us) that we don't get hurt feelings in the process and that we all end up together on the deck laughing and playing 'go fish' until it's someone's bedtime. 

We will be fine anywhere, even if we don't sell and anywhere is here......but the other house has a room for granny and grampy to stay over and see all their grandkids. Here's hoping!

I have to accept that selling our house is beyond my control. I need to go put my toddler and two sweet, fat babies down for a nap now. We shall see...