Pulling Espresso Cup Handles

The handles of all my pots are made like this. They’re pulled from a larger block of clay, snipped off against a sharp edge and laid out in a long row. Now, it’s worth mentioning this immediately, I don’t dry these blanks out at all before attaching them, in fact, I want them to be soft, as the clay remaining malleable makes them easier to blend into the body of the cup and pull them. It also means that once attached and pulled, you need to dry them carefully, otherwise cracking will occur around the joins as two components of very different consistencies are being united. This was for a batch of 115 espresso cups. So, a full day stood up pulling fiddly handles. This isn’t the last step though, and once they’ve sat overnight wrapped up in plastic sheeting, I’ll double check the base of each on the wheel, trimming away tiny amounts of excess clay that were smeared over the foot during the handling process. I’ll be making a long format, narrated video for my YouTube video all about the process o