The scent is glorious and grounding, and depending on the purpose of the bowls, might be just about perfect. The original plan was to use simply sage, water, and tragacanth.Today I decided to add a little peace to the bowls by using some lavender distillate I made that's been hiding in the fridge for a while. That took the place of the water.
A rough recipe (at that point) was about 2/3 cup powdered white sage, 1/4 tsp tragacanth, and 1/4 cup lavender distillate.
The clay didn't want to hold together well at all. It clumped okay, but wouldn't hold a shape.
Fine. Maybe a rounded Tbsp of yellow sandalwood to make it more uniform, and another slosh of the distillate. Still not quite there, I added an additional 1/4 tsp of tragacanth. I was avoiding the extra tragacanth, because it absorbs so much liquid that in the end result there are more cracks from the shrinkage. This is still half of the amount I used with the first attempt at herb bowls a couple of months ago.It still didn't get exactly to the consistency I wanted, and wasn't roll-able.
These are the end result. The tiny bowl has a stick through it so that a ribbon handle can be added later.I'm going to keep at it. Eventually there will be a magazine article here when I've got it perfected, but in the meantime this the play.
