Hajimemashite!

 A quick hello!

First lecture of the second semester of my part time MA today! A new project, and a new blog to act as my "reflective journal" to document it all. My work is based on Japanese ideas of spirituality and beauty, I make oriental inspired teapots mainly, looking at the idea that things become more beautiful with age and use (but I'll explain further later). They have this lovely way of handing precious things down through the family, using and caring for them over the years, and one of the things they do is use cloth wraps or covers to protect items. One kind is called "furoshiki", and you often see them tied round lunch boxes, or even used instead of wrapping paper! They're basically a big cotton square

I got a bit hooked on crochet over Christmas (no pun intended!), made a ton of asian flowers and decided to try making a furoshiki style cover for a teapot. This was the scene in my flat this morning:

 Whenever I end up crocheting, I remember my Grandma and the head of art at my sixth form. Although I never really saw either of them crochet, I got crochet hooks from them both, and if not for that, I'd probably never have learnt. That and for some reason the head of art was shocked I didn't know how to crochet.

I think that maybe this cover has a little bit too much crochet, so I'm going to try a cotton ground with crochet flowers next! Hopefully that'll give it a more contemporary look and allow the flowers to stand out, although the bright colours definitely gave it the vibrant look I was after against the glaze. I'm hoping that pieces like this can be used to show off the glazes and provide a simpler make than my usual stuff, so I've got a kind of bread and butter range to sell. If anyone is interested in how I made the flowers, likes the teapot or has a comment, please feel free to message me! Now to bed, and then my neglected Japanese homework in the morning :P

Night!