I've mentioned this in passing, but now's the time for the official announcement... let the Year of Mugs begin!
This year I want to play around with textures, colors, and shapes, and mugs are a great way to do that (the fact that y'all love mugs, and I love mugs, well, that just helps steer the ship in the right direction!). So once a month this year, I'll be releasing a limited edition mug. There will only be about ten of each design, and once that design is sold out, that's it! They're gone! While I may bring in certain elements of them (shapes, or colors) into other mugs I make on a repeatable basis, these mugs will be limited to what I make when I launch each one.
From the listing (which you can find here): Looking for something unique, something hand made, something quirky? Take a look at these mugs as they are made, a different mug every month for the year. Sometimes the decoration will be the main focus of the mug, sometimes a new glaze will be what catches your eye. Either way, one of these twelve mugs is bound to, over the year, capture your heart and call to you. Let it become your go-to morning coffee mug, the mug you hope is clean at the end of the day for some evening tea, the mug you reach for first even when every other mug you own is clean.
January's mug is a smoky blue-gray with shades of dark blue and white flowing over the stones like water. They are hand-thrown on the wheel and altered with a texture roller. Each one is roughly four inches high and a little over three inches across at the rim. They are good and sturdy and weigh almost a pound each. They hold approximately ten ounces of liquid, and they're microwave and dishwasher safe -- however, while I have been known to put my own ceramics in the microwave, I don't recommend it for long periods of time. The rapid change in temperature when you take the mug out of the microwave can cause the glaze to cool more quickly than the ceramic, which retains heat, and so shrinks at a slower rate. This can occasionally call what is called "crazing", making small cracks in the glaze. This can happen immediately or even years later, and personally I've seen it happen on many of the commercial mugs I own that I put in the microwave often.
HaldeCraft ceramics begin life as slip-cast, hand-built, or wheel-thrown pieces and then are painted and glazed and put out into the world, all by the hands of one person. I learned ceramics like an old-school apprentice, at the feet of my grandmother who had a studio in the 1950s and 1960s, and many of the pieces I make incorporate now-vintage molds that she bought then. My pieces are unique, hand painted, and proudly made in my own home studio with confidence, mindfulness, and joy.
Thanks, y'all! I hope you love following along with these mugs I make this year as much as I'm enjoying making them.