Our pottery studio doors open onto the garden, the leaves have started to turn, each day the evenings seem to be drawing in earlier. Our busy season is creeping up on us as we prepare for Christmas and the festive season. Autumn is definitely one of my favourite seasons with Spring close at its heels. With both of these seasons my heart is filled with hope, an opportunity for new starts and growth.
Autumns Earthy warm palette of rusty harvested apples, bundles of cut golden wheat, freshly dug mustard yellow squashes and copper Beech leaves makes my heart sing. I love woodland walks especially the smell of the woodland floor as you crunch over the fallen leaves, the fresh crisp air leaving a healthy glow on your cheeks. Once home you light the log burner, and a candle and pour a cup of tea and snuggle up in your favourite chair.
As a maker autumn is typically a busy time as I prepare for the Christmas period. Wholesale orders for shops have started dropping in. Organised customers have already started on their Christmas shopping, spreading the cost and allowing time for their made to order pieces. In the studio we are attempting to build some stock of our popular items such as mugs and wax burners. We have been running our business now for 18 months, last Christmas we purely made to order, due to not being in the position to have stock in place ahead of the season. It went well, but was extremely busy and the last couple of weeks before Christmas were so stressful as if you know anything about the ceramic process you will know that it can be a challenging process!
Most things take us 2-3 weeks depending of what we have waiting to make, the process of ceramics is a lengthy one without much wiggle room for rushing through orders. Everything we make in our studio is made by forming the clay in our hands and shaping it, nothing is made with the wheel or slip cast, so everything is very much a unique piece, making it all that much more special.
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This year we hope to reduce the festive stress even if just a bit! We plan to have at least a day off a week, when you are doing a job you love and have the orders there waiting its hard to step away, but this year we are going to. We also plan to adjust our working hours slightly so we go for a dog walk in daylight and work later instead.
It's so important for me to be with nature, to slow down, to notice the changes around me, to practice gratitude and being outside helps so much with that. We mostly start and finish the day with meditation and we are determined that when its gets busy we prioritise this as starting and finishing the day well helps with maintaining our strength and longevity in creativity.
We love cooking and cook from scratch most days, we enjoy doing this together, but when its gets so busy it can be easy to not eat well and that in turn makes you feel run down. So we are going to go to the local farmers market to collect our vegetables and batch cook our stews, soups and sauces to make evening meals more convenient once we are in from the studio.
We are gradually adding pieces to our website shop and have many items in stock or available as made to order. We will be adding new lines in addition to our current lines including our popular Winters Night Starry Mug.
As well as on our website shop you can also shop with us online at Etsy and Not On The High Street. In store at The St. Ives Company, St Ives, Cornwall. Pebble & Salt, Fowey, Cornwall. Artyzan, Redruth, Cornwall.