Terracotta

An army of terracotta pots sat on Martin’s worktable, each near-identical pot arranged in formation like a small soldier. This homogeny, however, would soon be disrupted. For Martin, the rusty red clay was a blank canvas of possibility to be painted over with glazes and oxides, creating a myriad of unique vessels. He planned to illustrate this batch with abstract floral shapes for the spring planting season. Martin grabbed his underglaze pencil and carefully sketched petals, leaves, and flowing lines on each little pot, carefully considering the compositions as he went. After each pot had been touched by the pencil, Martin selected and prepared his glazes. Dipping a brush into each glaze, he layered the pigments onto the terracotta surface, creating vibrant illustrations: blue-green leaves framed orange, yellow, and purple flowers. With the final stroke of his brush, the former soldiers were transformed into flower children, ready to be glaze fired.

Words by Erica Lange

For more information about our yarn bases and spinning fibers, including care instructions, please visit our Yarn Bases page.

Please note that, due to the nature of hand-dyed yarn, no two skeins of yarn will be exactly alike. I recommend alternating skeins every few rows for projects using multiple skeins of the same colorway. If you order multiple skeins of the same colorway, I will do my best to select skeins that are the closest match.

I dye each skein with professional acid dyes and leave the yarn in the dye bath until the dye has exhausted before rinsing and soaking in wool wash. Minor color bleeding may occur on the first wash, especially with extremely dark colors.

Although I do my best to accurately represent each colorway in product photos, please note that the colors may vary depending on monitor and/or device settings.