Jugtown Pottery Holiday Kiln Opening - Dec. 4

Saturday, Dec 4 is the Jugtown Pottery Annual Kiln Opening. There are lots of beautiful pieces from wood and gas fired kilns. I will be working all week to create some new pieces and more of my birds on perches.

The museum opens at 7am with hot drinks and refreshments. People come early to get a number for the line, then peek in the windows to start their lists! Doors open at 8:30!

Later that afternoon from 3:30-5:30pm the NC Pottery Center will host the opening reception of Collectors Eye, Series I: Seven Perspectives.


So come early, there are several other holiday openings Saturday including Westmoore Pottery, Chris Luther Pottery, Bulldog Pottery, Avery Pottery and Tileworks and Thomas Pottery and end up at the NC Pottery Center. The exhibit looks great!

 Here are some images from the Jugtown web site.

Bird(s) in the Oven

I started the day making more of my little birds, as all but one sold at the Celebration! But then soon Wes, Bacchus and I headed for Aberdeen, Southern Pines and I had the day off!!! Bacchus had a "spa appt" as Wes calls it, at PetsMart Grooming, for a bath and freshening up. He was not too happy when we left him, in fact, he jumped that gate to try to go with us, rather than into his "spa". When I go into Chakra's for my spa treatments, you couldn't pay me to back out. The difference between me and my dog!

We, then, went shopping to get ready for tomorrow, and this evening I have been preparing the food. But first I must give a plug to Fried Green Tomatoes in Aberdeen (1 south to 211, first left and down a bit on the left). We've been there a couple times and Wes wanted fried oysters in a big way (despite the fact that we are having oyster stuffing tomorrow). They aren't on the lunch menu, but the French (truly a French Chef) chef, Philippe Brainos, is so very accomodating and said "But of course", in a large French accent. So I ordered them too, with a double order of slaw (you get 2 sides). OMG, were they ever good, cooked perfectly (I worried after ordering if we should have requested lightly fired) and that is what we said about our first visit so if you are down in the Pinehurst area drop in here. Not a ton of atmosphere, but not bad-definitley run by a Frenchman and defintely serving great food! Plus they have a dinner menu.... if you get on their email list you see it weekly, and they have a back room for dinner that has a bit of a Moulin Rouge feel, well kind of, sort of, maybe if you haven't actually been to the MR in Paris ( I saw no scantily clad, fabulously outfitted women, but if you've been to the MR, you know you do have to pay the pretty penny to see it all). But it is a room one would feel at home in and perhaps think of as Parisian! And the food so far has been fabulous, and extremely reasonable.

Anyway back to Thanksgiving, I thought I might post some pictures of my preparation for Thanksgiving. Not many of us so if you are alone and needing a place, call me!

acorn squash to be roasted and drizzled with a vinaigrette made from the below garlic, pepper, cilantro, etc! Sounds yummy, hope it is!

Roasted garlic for the red mashed potatoes!

Naturally greens from the garden, arugula, and we have 4 different lettuces and baby spinach. All with tunnels to go over them for a year round crop of fresh greens, beets, turnips etc.

Jellied Cranberry sauce, I can't live without that and there are the oysters for the

GLUTEN FREE oyster stuffing or is it dressing, when you don't stuff it in the turkey?

Fresh natural, hormone, anti-biotic, etc free turkey is brining in cider, with some sea salt, sugar, smoked paprika, chipotle, ginger, clove and allspice.

And the neck and giblets are creating the stock for the gravy.

Part of this gallon went into the brine, but there is still about 1/4 of a gallon left for some nice warm cider tomorrow.

That is a bit of what we'll be having. I haven't cooked a turkey in a while and really wanted to do it, so I am at it full force! We stopped at Sandhill's Winery on the way home today (a great shop in 7 Lakes if you don't know it) and picked up a couple cases of wine, so we are set!

Now I just have to go wrap things  up, make my notes and off to a nice night of snoozing and sleeping in!

Celebration of Seagrove Potters

Shame on me no pictures, but I am sure that Samantha will have some more on Bulldog's page. Sam and Bruce are our resident behind the scenes photographer and marketing subcommittee for Seagrove! Many, many thanks for all the work that they do for our area. AND to my luck, they are my neighbor at the Celebration. Wow, what wonderful work they have (will try to remember my own camera tomorrow!!) and I am so lucky to count them as my good friends. If you don't know their work, check them out above. They do the most incredible work, the colors, crystals, images, surfaces, wow. Absolutely amazing, Sam and Bruce are incredibly talented!

What a  great event so far. Thanks you to all that came by the booth. It was great to get to meet and re-meet people like Heather from our Facebook note and earlier Hermitage meeting, to so many faces and friends from each year. I love these events just for this reason, to see all of you and sometimes get a glimpse at earlier stuff I've done! And to say missing those of you that couldn't make it (Jeanne and Ben, boo... first pottery fest missed in a while isn't it? and thanks for sending word). And to all my new friends and customers. Thank you all so much!

I hope you can come visit the Jugtown Pottery Holiday Kiln Opening on Sat the 4th of December. Doors open at 8:30, (museum opens at 7am with hot drinks and warm snacks  to keep you warm in between window peaking for your preveiws!) . Come stock up, and then doors open a bit later for holiday kiln openings at Chris Luther, Westmoore Pottery, Bulldog Pottery and Thomas Pottery. Go to this page to find NC Pottery Events.

Again thanks to all who came by , Ihope to get my web site more updated, thanks for looking at it and I'll keep at it! Any questions or comments??? Email me!! jennie@jlkjewelry.com.

Birds of a Feather?

Celebration of Seagrove Potters.....this weekend! Sometimes I just like to try something different. I've done my pottery bird and chicken earrings since I came to Jugtown and thought about expanding on that and creating some year round ornaments. My test run putting them in the shop at Jugtown worked, first one sold within 2 hours! So I will have a selection of these birds this weekend.

Teapots

Teapots by Pam Owens, lids and handles by me.

Art and Nature

16 days....That is all that is left until the Celebration of Seagrove Potters. If you haven't gotten your Gala tickets, go directly to the web site and buy them on line!

I am working away on some new designs. Here are a couple that I have just finished. This is such a busy time of the year for all of us here in Seagrove, and of course all artists and craftspeople.

Yesterday morning our dog was at the pond barking like mad. Wes went down and thought he saw two beavers swimming around, and I joined him. Of course, Bacchus launched himself into the hyacinth filled water, the lab in him suddenly kicking into full gear. He swam in circles all around the pond, completely oblivious to the fact that these "beavers" were more adept in the water than he was. I was afraid he'd run out of steam in the hyacinth and go down. We finally coaxed him out and back into the garage. We were thrilled! Beavers eat water vegetation, and we have a ton of it! The water hyacinth is very pretty and horrendously invasive! (And people will pay $2-3 per plant for it, in nurseries.) We thought perhaps our answer to getting rid of it had come....two cool resident beavers to clean out the pond!

After a bit more research on line, after Wes saw them on the bank cuddling and noticed that they had long straight tails rather than big flat ones, we discovered that they were a pair of NA River Otters. That had been my thought when I first saw them swimming, they reminded me of the otters I watched in the Shed Aquarium, years ago. River otters are not vegetarians, they eat fish and sometimes small mammals. We had about 200 small koi put into the pond earlier this year (though we soon acquired a resident Great Heron right after, so there may not have been any left in there). I don't know if they got any koi, and I seriously doubt they wiped out our huge mole and vole population. They may not have been really keen on seeing 5 of us on the hill by the pond armed with cameras and binoculars, while they cuddled together, wrapped arond each other. I don't know what the deciding factor was, where they came from, or were they were going, but this morning as soon as it was light I went looking. No otters to be seen. We were thrilled though to have their 24 hour visit and hope that they'll be back to see us one day.