Okay, so I’ve been wanting to get into pottery, and I finally took the plunge! I decided to try making the Akro Agate tea set because, well, it looked cool. I’m a total beginner, so this was a real adventure.

First, I gathered all my stuff. I got some clay, obviously, a pottery wheel (borrowed from a friend, thankfully!), some basic tools, and a bunch of buckets for water. I even printed out some pictures of Akro Agate tea sets for reference, just so I had some idea of what I was aiming for.

Getting Started

I started by trying to center the clay on the wheel. Oh boy, this was harder than it looked in the videos. The clay kept wobbling all over the place, and I ended up with clay splattered all over my face more than once. It took a good hour, and a lot of frustrated sighs, but I finally managed to get a somewhat centered lump.

• Centering the clay: Major struggle bus.
• Clay consistency: I think mine was a little too wet at first.

Next, I tried to actually shape the clay. I started with a simple cylinder, which is supposed to be the base for, well, pretty much everything. Even that was tricky! I kept making the walls too thin, and they’d collapse. I probably re-did the cylinder five or six times before I got something that vaguely resembled a cup.

Then came the fun part (sort of): trying to make the teacups and the teapot. I quickly realized that making a teapot is a whole different level of difficult. The spout! The lid! It’s a lot. I decided to focus on the cups first, and even those were challenging. I wanted that classic Akro Agate swirl, but my attempts mostly resulted in… blobs. Uneven, lumpy blobs.

Many Failures, and Small Triumphs

I spent the entire afternoon covered in clay, getting increasingly frustrated, but also kind of enjoying myself. There’s something really therapeutic about working with clay, even when you’re failing spectacularly.

I ended up making about ten “cups,” none of which I’d actually want to drink out of. They were all different sizes, lopsided, and generally pretty terrible. But, I did manage to get one that was almost sort of cup-shaped, and I even got a tiny little swirl on it. It was a very small victory, but I celebrated it anyway.

The Results

So, did I successfully make an Akro Agate tea set? Absolutely not. Did I learn a lot? Yes. Am I going to keep trying? Definitely. My “tea set” is currently a collection of misshapen lumps of clay, but it’s my collection of misshapen lumps of clay, and I’m weirdly proud of them. I have new found respect to those with professional ceramic skills.

I’m going to keep practicing, and maybe one day I’ll actually have a tea set I can show off. For now, I’m just going to enjoy the process, even if it means ending up covered in clay and looking like a muddy mess. I plan to keep trying my new found hobby!