The pointed steel tool,
A bowl of slip,
A small sponge,
The Basket Covering: About six lengths of No. 4 deep-brown rattan,
A piece of fine but strong wire 24 inches long,
A pair of pliers,
A bunch of deep-brown raffia.
Around the quaint and attractive hanging jar from which this one is copied is woven a tale as curious as its covering of knotted brown twigs. It is this: the rectangular green jar, which looks like a pottery box, was once the casket in which some Chinese lady kept her pomades and perfumes. When she slept, her head, which had been dressed most elaborately with the aforesaid pomades, was laid upon this same pottery box for a pillow—another instance of the painfulness of pride in China!
How strange the little Chinese lady would think it of us to use her earthen pillow as we do—for a hanging flower-jar! Who covered it with knotted wistaria twigs? I should suspect it was some deft-fingered Japanese—though the jar was bought in Hawaii.
It will not be very difficult to copy. First there is the box-like jar to be made. A rectangular bottom is cut from a well-worked lump of clay after it has been patted flat with the hand and rolled with the rolling-pin. It should be five by three and a half inches—which allows an inch on length and breadth for shrinkage. Upon this foundation coils of clay are built, as described in previous chapters, making them thinner, however, than usual—not over a quarter of an inch thick. As the walls are built they should be finished carefully inside and out, keeping them straight and true at the corners, as well as on all sides. When the jar is seven and a quarter inches high, the top is made even by eye and perfected on the ground-glass slab, as described in Chapter II. A rectangular piece of clay is then rolled and cut the size of the bottom; an oval piece about two by three inches is cut out of the middle, with the pointed steel tool, and it is left on a plaster slab to stiffen for half an hour. The upper edge of the jar is then criss-crossed with the pointed steel tool and wet with slip, and this flat top is attached to it deftly and carefully. After drying for several hours, it may be finished with the sheet-steel tool, the shape perfected, and the surface dampened with a sponge and polished with the fingers. When it has dried for several days it is coated with a glossy green glaze and fired.