"Where does the white go when the snow melts?" ~ Unknown

Are your eyes deceiving you???? 

NO!

 That is indeed Karl Lagerfeld and ORREFORS!!!! 

Eva and Anders mentioned it to me the other day but I just remembered and looked it up on the internet! 

You can read (here and here) that dear old Karl is designing a few lines for my ORREFORS! Maybe he will come here?!?! Maybe I CAN MEET HIM! HOLY COW!!!  PS: Dear Karl, I love this picture.

I am sorry everyone that I did not post yesterday... I have no idea what I did instead, I even thought about posting, what to write about, pictures, etc... but oh well.  So, yesterday,  I worked in the morning with Maja in the hot shop.  I was very tired for some reason and she was super energetic and excited.  This is was good except she kept talking and talking.  I know I shouldn't blame someone else for my bad work but she was distracting.  I finally finished a very crappy piece and realized that I hadn't put it in the mold I had meant to nor had I put a neck line in it to take it off the pipe and on to the punty.  I had instead listened to her talking about making Christmas balls instead.  I didn't really participate in the conversation but I couldn't not pay attention because she was about a foot away from me the whole time talking.  I had to ask her to talk less, which of course turned super awkward and she kind of acted like a teenager along the lines of going "fine, I won't say anything the rest of the day!" I tried to explain that she was just talking more than normal and I didn't want her to be silent, but it was awkward and awful and she really didn't talk the rest of the time we worked together.  Uhg, I know it is good that I said something and didn't just get mad and suffer and etc but it is not encouraging when the outcome of my saying something is pretty much just as bad.  Here are our Christmas balls:

Luckily, in the afternoon I worked with Vegdar (I think that is his name, I think I saw it written down like that... but I am still not sure exactly).  We got all excited and made huge things again.  Each one bigger then the one before and chaos of course ensued.  We got a few good pieces and here are some pictures:

 This was supposed to be a bowl, but then I got it really hot and decided to make it an absurd plate.  It reminds everyone of a vinyl record, except not so round.

 This bowl is small in height, but super thick so maybe I can do some cool deep cutting on it!

Oh, and since I didn't post the pictures from the day before here they are:

 These don't stand up like normal since they still have punty marks on them.  I will grind them and hopefully find something to do with them...

 I like the one on the right, the color stayed nice and dark since the piece didn't get that large.

I call them The Rolling Rock Series... except no one here knows what I am talking about... 

It always reminds me of Pappa!

The weather here is officially cold as shit.  It is freezing every night, and cold and wet during the day.  I don't remember the last time I saw the sun... OK, that might be an exaggeration, maybe it was Sunday.  It doesn't really matter, the sun starts setting at 3:30 PM and it is dark by 4 o'clock.  Like REALLY dark.  Today it snowed for the 3rd time, it is snowing right now actually.  It has been going between rain, ice and snow all day.  Not pretty.  I wish it would snow and that is it... not so nice when it is mush.  Hopefully this is indicative of a good winter with lots of snow!  

Today was pretty uneventful...  I worked with Vegdar in the morning and Maja in the afternoon.  She and I weren't awkward or anything which was nice.  We did more Christmas balls, some in white that might be cool... I hope.  In the morning Vegdar and I got a little out of hand with the big objects and Stig-Allan made us calm down and try to maintain control over the glass.  We managed and we even saved a few pieces that we dropped or really messed up! Improvement I would say :)  All in all a good day.  I am currently trying to figure out how to weigh down my pipe (I have a blocked pipe in my room for practice thanks to Stig-Allan) to try and get better at balancing and keeping control over heavy things with my left hand.  I was kind of thinking taping cans of vegetables on the end, but that seems a little odd.  Maybe Stig-Allan will have a perfect suggestion tomorrow if I remember to ask him.  I want something cheap and doesn't involve me buying something I will never use again (ie: small weights for working out).

OK, I am off to do another lesson in my Swedish class.  I did one yesterday (maybe that is what I did instead of posting) and now I can say trädet är grönt (the tree is green) and hanväsken är röd (the purse is red) and some other things... that aren't helpful to everyday conversation... I guess I will get there soon if I can just keep it up!