Oh my goodness. How thrilled am I at how these turned out! I was so excited, I went back to the clay studio every single day this week, in anticipation of them coming out of the kiln.

I like the shape of this one, and the speckled white glaze looks great.

The top of the handle shows how well the glaze took to the ocean texture on the handles.

Given how big these are, I'm pretty pleased at the proportions, with the really wide handles, and I LOVE how the blue glaze ran, so there are yummy little water drips at the bottom of the handles and along the sides of the body. So pleasant to behold.

This ones a little stout, but I like it.

Love how the blue is showing up, next to the white.

I've shied away from handles because I tend to think they ruin my pieces... frankly, because they do. I'm just not good at them, and because of that, I'm afraid of trying, attaching it, then ruining a perfectly good piece with a dreadful handle. But I'm really happy I'm slowly getting over this fear. These turned out exactly how I pictured it in my head, which is always a good indication of progress.

The trickiest part for me, is attaching the handles to the mugs. Where the two pieces meet is where I get really finicky. I just never like how it looks, and it's never perfect. So, in an attempt to let go of that "perfection," I went with a more minimal approach to attaching. Usually, I'd sit there, smoothing out every single possible bump and imperfection, trying to get the mug to look like one piece instead of 2 pieces joined together–which is what they really are. So, instead of trying to cover that up and make it something that it isn't, I let it go. Basically, I tried to touch it as little as possible.

You can see how I've attached the handles at the bottom.

Straight-on view of the bottom of the handles.

And I'm really happy with the results. Adds to the ocean vibe of it, making it feel more like something organic (which it is), instead of the machine-made "perfect" I'd usually try to go for.

Loose, loose, livin' loosely. Flowing like water. Sippin' on my green tea.