Extropic Crusader (BLM)

@extropiccrusade

She/they; SRE on hiatus: burnout sucks; writerish, doodles, plays with power tools and hot iron, bakes, crochets, gardens, learning pottery, reads copiously, and drinks a LOT of tea. #UglyDogs FTW Let's melt some ice.

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¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y extropiccrusade.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· 11d

Apparently, I am an acceptable human. (I do not speak fluent cat, but I know what biscuits and purring and scent marking and love nibbles mean - even when I'd rather not have the last.) Ok, I'm not going to argue when the queen makes her desires known. It's her house, I'm just visiting.

A black cat with yellow eyes and a few white whiskers, perched on the lap of the human photographing her. She is very sleek.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· 12d

Every so often, when I level up a skill, I discover (again) that I'm not yet a god. Flopped three mugs today in pottery before BARELY managing a fourth. I think I must have done a bad job wedging, and since I'm trying new things, it bit me. But the hedgehog travel mug came out great. #pottery

A handle-less brown and gold mug with a hedgehog engraved on the side. The glaze has been thinned to make it more obvious.

The top of a brown and gold clay travel mug. Something (a hedgehog) is carved into the side of the mug, but it's unclear what from this angle.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· 15d

A few summers ago, some family members gave me a spotted bee balm plant that I put in the front garden, where it promptly died. Nothing from it the following 2 years, nary a sprout. Today, abruptly: HI! I'm delighted. 😃 Time to weed around this new native friend and encourage it a LOT. #garden

Many differently-sized white flowers that look rather like eight or sixteen pointed fireworks exploding out in star shapes from central green stamens. Below, the leaves echo the flowers in their radial patterns, although they are much less showy.

There is also a garden hose that has snuck into the picture.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· 15d

A fun thing about doing pottery with my spousecreature (💙) is that every so often I get to squee about THEIR work. For example, I love this coffee cup. #pottery

A hand thrown coffee cup with blue glaze applied around the rim and base, but with a deliberately-exposed equator of unglazed clay. The blue has dribbled in delightful patterns.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· 24d

@kbspangler.com I have encountered someone else with emotional coping butter, but hers was a bit more squished. (I'm told they're available online, I said finding someone else with coping butter in the wild was much funnier.)

A squished stick of "butter" that is actually a squishy memory foam toy

A stick of "butter" that's actually a stress toy, in the process of being squished

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· 26d

Oh, I'm going to use it. Just. Not all the time.

A twenty ounce barrel-shaped mug made of light brown clay, with blue glaze that has shades of ice blue white, dark blue, and royal blue all swirled together. Deliberate drips go down to the lower half of the mug, which is partially unglazed.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jul 14

My lovely niefdog, Queen of all she surveys. She's being sneakish in this photo because her mum and I had to shave out some mats that she got under the onesie she had to wear while her desexing incision healed. And then we had the temerity to TRIM HER EYEBROWS. Her majesty was very patient.

A beautiful black Havanese (who is a trifle scruffy because surgery will do that to a body) looks over a pile of very cozy blankets. She is up on the couch, safely out of reach of the subservient humans who paid tribute with treats after shaving off the mats on her belly and then brushing her ears. As long as she can keep an eye on us, she thinks she's probably safe. (Her eyes are now visible. They weren't before we trimmed her eyebrows.)

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jul 12

Much better. #BreadSky

A loaf of whole wheat bread (stuffed with green garlic scapes and Romano cheese) sits on a baking sheet, with ten smaller rolls around it.

Three slices of garlic and cheese bread, slathered with butter, on a white plate.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jul 12

I have been craving garlic bread all day, but I'm only just now getting it into the oven, because arranging a day full of teenagers is not something I can multitask. The next 20 minutes are going to be the longest 20 minutes of my life. #BreadSky

A really garbage photo of garlic bread and rolls in my oven, taken through the oven door glass.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jul 9

I'm candying cherries in hope of winter fruitcake. I stopped making fruitcake when I stopped being able to get cherries without HFC and red dye #5, so I'm hoping. The fact that they're the cherries I picked off my own tree is an added bonus.

740 grams of sour cherries in a giant stock pot (I was not sure whether they were going to foam or not - they didn't) being unapologetically RED and simmering in a bath of sugar syrup.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jul 7

I refused to take a Lyft today, so done with cars right now, but it's very wet and I forgot my rain coat. Still worth it for a chance to play with mud, though. I pulled a wall 8 inches up and it was only maybe 3/8" thick!

A conical clay mug with an 8 inch ruler inside it. Behind it is a barrel mug that is slightly shorter. Both are still wet clay, so there will be shrinkage.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jul 6

Happiness is a volunteer marigold. #GardenSky

A bright orange marigold that has self-seeded itself at the verge of a concrete driveway. It is surrounded by weeds, but it's not letting that stop it from being cheerful and optimistic.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 28

I have exercised a typical coping mechanism for introverts at parties and did crochet, and now my sling-pack has a water bottle holder. Finally. (Did they think I wouldn't need one? Why?)

A purple Cotopaxi cross-body sling-pack with a bright fuschia crocheted water bottle holster sewn onto one side. The colors don't match but they're both unapologetically bright, so I don't really care.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 27

My library hold has come up, eeee! Now I read - as soon as I'm done with this inconvenient but joyous birthday party I said I'd go to. Why do I have to be social, I have a new book?! 😁

The cover of _Ode to the Half-Broken_ by Suzanne Palmer, with a bookmark on top of it to obscure the library bar code.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 27

A quarter of the tree yielded close to a gallon of cherries. I'm not sure I can reach the top branches, so the birds may get to enjoy those. (I don't mind sharing, cousins, it's when you eat them all and I get none that I'm mad.) I will try to go pick more tomorrow. Then there will be JAM.

A gallon paint bucket, emptied and scrubbed clean of paint, now nearly full to the brim with sour pie cherries.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 26

This is not The Mug, which didn't fit in the kiln. But it is the prequel and holy moly I love this glaze and how it is behaving on this clay body! #pottery

A barrel shaped mug in medium brown clay, with dripping blue and white glaze. The dribbles leave lighter now tracks in the darker blue. Behind it, there's an orange 32oz Nalgene bottle, and the mug is about 2/3 as tall.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 24

Putting up the rabbit wire in the yard so that the damn bunnies can't girdle my trees again NEXT year, listening to @blairbraverman.bsky.social tell stories around the fire about a landscape I love a lot. (Though I wouldn't want to walk through it in high heels.) A joy as always!

A cross bar of a steel pipe enclosure, with chicken wire zip tied below it. Mulch, onion sprouts, and an apple tree are on the other side.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 21

Ok, I've had steamed eggs crack in the instant pot before, but I've never had a shell do this.

Eight brown chicken eggs in a small instant pot bowl. Two of the eggs are cracked, but one of them has blown its shell off nearly intact.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 16

OMG OMG OMG OMG I MIGHT HAVE FINALLY DONE IT. I might have made THE MUG. I have been working toward this for a YEAR. (I use a 24oz mug by preference, because my office is on the third floor and the kettle is on the first floor. But making a cylinder 6.25"x4" on the inside is HARD, yo.) #pottery

A barrel-shaped proto-mug made of still wet clay. It is nearly 7" tall. (And was in fact 7" tall in cylinder form before I bowed the sides out because I prefer barrel-shaped mugs. Inside, it was 6.5" tall.)

A barrel-shaped proto-mug made of still wet clay. It is 3" wide at its narrowest point, and is closer to 4.25" wide at the widest part. (It was 4" wide in cylinder form before I bowed the sides out and narrowed the mouth.)

A side view of a proto-mug on the drying shelf. It's not PERFECT, but for apprentice-level work, it is DEFINITELY good.

The math in the front of my pottery log book, so that I know what size I have to throw to, to get what I want. 18 ounces is 5.65"x3.39" when accounting for the 11.5% shrinkage of stoneware pottery. 30 ounces is 6.78"x3.95". (I also have 12 ounces and 8 ounces, for friends in class. Because I'm a great big nerd.)

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 11

The weather can get completely lost as far as I'm concerned, (heat index: 92 and rising) but I'll take June's first strawberries as compensation. I made the bowl AND I planted and harvested the berries. And for reference, the bowl is 4 inches tall and 6 inches across at the top.

A handmade pottery bowl about 6 inches/15cm across, in blue and black. It is nearly full of home grown strawberries, all bright red, some with their stems still attached.

A handmade pottery bowl, blue on top, black on the bottom, 6 inches/15 cm across at the top and 4 inches/10 cm tall, nearly completely full of bright red home-grown strawberries.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 10

The kiln spirits were friendly to my glazes this week. 😄 The test squares I did for my underglazes confirmed that there is something VERY reactive in the clear glaze with purple or brown. Nice to know for sure; I'll use a different clear coat next time, and I'll pre-test it. Still salty about that.

Handmade pottery on the kitchen counter. Left to right: a pale blue and dark rose cup, a deep blue bowl with white cherry blossoms, a medium blue cup with white spirals, a black and blue medium mixing bowl, a rose cup, a brown and yellow mixing bowl

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 10

It has a handle! And I threw several more things that did not annihilate themselves on the wheel - along with several more that did. This clay is a lot more forgiving in some ways, and a lot less in others. We biked out and back too, so I got almost 11 miles in today. Mostly bike paths too! 1/2

A brown clay mug, about 6 inches tall, with a handle attached to it, sitting on some newspaper to dry. The clay is still quite wet, so this isn't going in the kiln anytime soon.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 5

Glaze chemistry is horrid. 😬 One does not expect the CLEAR glaze to be the one doing the disaster, but it did. Something about it went and borked every bit of brown - and plum, but the plum has been messed up all year - glaze it touched. Amber, temoku, underglaze, all of the above. Drat. #pottery

A bisque fired cup with terracotta brown stripes around the mouth and base, with a warm orange-yellow band around the middle. Terracotta and black swirls are painted in contrasting areas.

A solid peach-colored cup with fading black swirls barely visible on the outside, and a strangely mottled white and dark brown interior, next to a blue and black mug. (The cup is the same one from the prior picture, and the interior should be a solid dark brown, except that the clear over glaze has done something extremely strange to it and the brown swirls and bands on the outside.)

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· Jun 3

I got to play with a new type of clay today! WOW what a difference. It's more forgiving of my desires in some ways, and much, MUCH less forgiving in others. I've had days where I could throw five reasonably competent cups in two hours. Definitely not today: I got two failures and this.

A brown call vessel, still wet, just off the wheel. It's shaped like a barrel, and is about 6 inches tall and 3 inches across at the mouth. (At a guess, it's about 4 inches at the wide part, but it's hard to measure without calipers and I forgot mine.)

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· May 27

Last year, as part of my raised bed shenanigans, I moved a couple of iris I had, to get them out of the way. They'd been growing well for years, but never bloomed, and since they were part of a six pack of "the tags fell off these iris so you get them at 50% off" sale, I had no ideas on color. Ooh.

A pair of gorgeous wine-purple and peach iris with brilliant orange stamens

A pair of white-bordered-by-lilac and pale purple iris with orange creamsicle stamens

A brilliant violet and palest lavender iris with yellow stamens peeking out from inside

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· May 19

I have successfully made a large mug. Not large ENOUGH, but way better than the 8oz mug that was the largest I managed to throw last term. It's now my decaf mug, because I don't drink too much of anything right before bed (I have dreams of trying to find a loo), and that's when I drink decaf tea.

A large truncated-cone-shaped mug, nearly full of water, on a kitchen scale that reads "18.90 fl.oz". The mug is dark blue outside, light blue inside, and I made it.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· May 18

As of about 10 minutes ago, my yard had no black swallowort poking its little dastardly sprouts above the soil. That's undoubtedly changed in the past ten minutes, but at least there's less. My garlic is happy, as is my columbine. My carrots and turnips didn't sprout; I need to reseed. #GardenSky

Very happy Rocky Mountain Columbine in the blueberry bed. Bright blue with white and yellow centers.

A raised bed full of sprouting garlic shoots that are about 18 inches tall

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· May 15

I have gotten to visit my nief-dog! (I won't visit when the kids are sick, her human has a compromised immune system.) Many pettins and snuggles were had.

A beautiful black Havanese dog in a pink harness, glancing at the camera before looking back at her human who has treatos in her pocket and therefore requires constant supervision.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· May 13

The mug is still greenware, but since it hasn't been fired yet, I got a chance to underglaze the animals to make them pop a bit more when I put the food-safe high-fire glaze on. Now I'm contemplating only doing a clear coat, because wow, am I happy with this. (I still don't like squirrels though.)

A black silhouette of a Northern Cardinal on the side of a white-clay unfired mug. The handle is to the right (The silhouette is a bit wrong, but that's what happens when there's no CTRL-Z option with your media format.)

A black silhouette of an Eastern Gray Squirrel on the side of a white-clay unfired mug. The handle is to the right. The squirrel is underdoubtedly trying to figure out how to sabotage the kiln.

Extropic Crusader (BLM)@extropiccrusade· May 7

I'm making a mug as a birthday gift for a good friend who's been in my life for multiple decades at this point. She teaches ornithology and got her PhD studying squirrels. It made figuring out what to put on the mug for decoration simple. But only for her would I put a squirrel on something I made.