Pottery knowledge for every level

A handle is the hardest easy thing in pottery.

You can throw a clean mug in six months. You can spend six years making handles that still look like a question mark somebody gave up on. Here is every method we teach, written out in lists you can prop your phone against, plus eight videos from potters who are much better at this than most of us.

You can throw a clean mug in six months. You can spend six years making handles that still look like a question mark somebody gave up on. Here are two methods, the attaching sequence that decides whether they survive, and one video.

Illustration of a potter in a busy studio pulling a long wet clay handle downward over a bowl of slip

Five methods, eight videos, and every question we get asked about handles.

Start here

Pick one method, make six, keep two.

The method is almost never what fails. Handles come off because the handle and the pot were at different wetnesses when they met, or because the thin parts dried and shrank first and the thick join was left to catch up. Get those two right and any method works.

Never made one before

Roll a coil. It teaches you taper, curve and joining without also asking you to master a pull, and a tapered coil handle looks deliberate rather than apologetic.

You want it to look pulled

Pull off a carrot. It looks impossible for about three weeks and then suddenly is not, and nothing else gives you that thick-to-thin cross section.

Whichever one you pick, make a batch

Pull or roll five or six at a time, lay them on a board, and choose the two best once they have stiffened. The rest go back in the reclaim bucket and cost you nothing. Choosing beats salvaging.

Why this page is a page

You already watched the video. That is the problem.

Everybody learns handles the same way. You find a video, you watch somebody with beautiful forearms do it in ninety seconds, you nod, you feel ready. Then you sit down at your own table with a wet lump and no idea what order anything happens in.

We think that gap is not a you problem. It is a format problem.

What video is genuinely better at

Timing, pressure, and speed. There is no sentence on earth that teaches you how hard to squeeze. You have to see a hand do it, ideally several different hands, because every potter grips a little differently and one of them will click for you.

What a written list is better at

Order and recall. A list sits still. You can look at step four, do step four, look back at step four again. A video keeps going whether or not your hands did, and scrubbing back thirty seconds with clay on your thumb is its own small tragedy.

Why we put both on one page

Watch first so you know what the motion looks like. Then work off the list, because the list is the part you can keep open next to you. The video teaches the feel. The list keeps you from forgetting the boring step that decides whether the thing cracks.

And you can tick things off

Every list below is tappable. Tap a step, it goes green. It is not saving anything anywhere and it resets when you reload, which is on purpose. It is a place to keep your finger, not a record of your life.

The rest is practice

None of this replaces doing it forty times. Handles are a muscle skill. Reading about them will get you from bad to okay much faster than guessing, and then the only thing that gets you from okay to good is clay under your fingernails on a Tuesday.

Before you pick a method

Five things every handle needs, no matter how you make it

Method is the fun argument. These five are the part that actually decides whether your handle survives the kiln.

Same clay

Handle and pot come from the same clay body. Different bodies shrink at different rates and pull each other apart on the way down.

Same wetness

Match the moisture of the pot. Soft handle onto a dry pot is one of the most common cracks in any studio.

Same thickness

Roughly the thickness of the wall it attaches to. Thicker dries slower, and anything that dries at a different speed than its neighbor is looking for a way to crack.

Room for fingers

Two fingers minimum for a mug, three if you like a full grip. Test it while the clay is still soft, because you get zero votes after it dries.

A slow dry

The join is thicker than everything around it. Cover the handle loosely, let the whole piece even out, and stop trying to make it to the shelf tonight.

Leather hard is the word you want

Almost every method below wants the pot at soft leather hard: firm enough to hold its shape when you hold it, damp enough that a fingernail still marks it. Bone dry pots do not take handles. They take handles temporarily, and then they take them off again in the kiln.

1

Pulled off a carrot

  • The classic
  • Hardest to learn
  • Best for batches

You wedge a lump, shape it into a fat carrot, and pull the handle out of it with a wet hand. Gravity and friction do the thinning. You cut off the good part and let it stiffen before it goes on the pot.

This is the one that looks impossible for about three weeks and then suddenly is not. It also gives you the nicest cross section of any method: thick at the top, tapering down, with a soft ridge where your fingers ran. Nothing else looks quite like it.

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Watch first “The Ultimate Pottery Handle Pulling Guide — A Beginner’s Guide”
By Florian Gadsby . The long, patient one. Its chapters cover getting the clay to the right condition, hand positions, two common pulling errors, and how to dry the handles properly. If you only have time for one video on this page, this is a good pick.
Two minutes “How to Pull a Handle - Ann’s Two Minute Tips”
By Little Street Pottery . The whole motion with nothing else attached to it. Good one to rewatch right before you sit down, and short enough that you will actually rewatch it.

Pull more than you need

Nobody pulls one handle. Pull five or six off the same carrot, lay them all out on a board, and pick the two best once they have stiffened.

The rest go back in the reclaim bucket and cost you nothing. Choosing beats salvaging, and it is the fastest way to learn what a good one looks like.

2

Pulled straight off the mug

  • One mug at a time
  • Strongest join
  • Traditional

Same pulling motion, different starting point. You attach a stub of clay to the pot first and then pull the handle downward while it is already stuck on. The join gets made before the handle exists, which is why it cracks less often, as long as the stub is as stiff as the mug.

The trade is that you are working on a finished pot with wet hands. It takes nerve. It is also the fastest way to a handle that looks like it grew out of the mug instead of being glued to it.

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Watch first “How to Pull A Handle Off a Mug! + Little Handle Tips”
By Marlaina The Pottery Lady . A relaxed run through pulling off the pot itself, with a pile of small handle tips scattered through it. Good pacing if the Gadsby video felt like a lot.

Which of the two pulls should you learn?

Carrot first, if you are making more than one mug. You get to throw away the bad handles before they touch a pot, and throwing away bad handles is most of learning handles.

Off the mug once you trust your pull. It is fewer steps, it is a better join, and it looks the most alive.

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Coil and rolled

  • Start here
  • No wheel needed
  • Very forgiving

Roll a coil, taper it, bend it, attach it. That is the whole method, and there is nothing embarrassing about it. Plenty of potters who can pull a beautiful handle still roll coils when they want a round grip or a chunky farmhouse look.

The one thing that separates a good coil handle from a snake stuck on a cup is the taper. A coil of even thickness reads as lazy from across the room. Thin the bottom third and it suddenly looks intentional.

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Watch first “How to make handles - 4 different ways | Pottery 101”
By Mae Ceramics . Covers pulled, slab and coil handles back to back in one sitting, with a chapter for each. The title says four ways and the description lists these three. A good pick if you have not decided which method is yours yet, because you get to see them side by side.

The lazy upgrade

Roll a coil, then run a rib or the flat of a knife down one face. Now it has a spine and a flat where your fingers go. Ten extra seconds, completely different object.

4

Slab and strap

  • Most repeatable
  • Clean and modern
  • Great with texture

Roll a slab, cut a strip, curve it, attach it. Flat and wide instead of round. If you want ten mugs whose handles match, this is the answer, because a template cuts the same shape every single time and your hands do not.

Straps also take texture better than anything else. Stamps, roulettes, a fabric press, a thumb rest pressed into the top. There is a lot of room to make it yours.

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Watch first “POTTERY - How to make a strap handle.”
By Clark Togei . A close-up demonstration of the strap handle, with a short line of on-screen text at each step, from shaping the strip to the finished handle with a thumb rest. The full title on YouTube adds a line in Japanese that says where the studio is.

Where straps go wrong

People cut them too wide. A strap wider than about an inch and a quarter starts fighting the curve of the mug and lifts at the edges as it dries. Narrower than you think, every time.

5

Lugs and knobs

  • Casseroles
  • Serving bowls
  • Lids

A lug is a handle you grip rather than hook your fingers through. Two of them on a casserole, one on each side of a soup bowl, a little tab on a lid. Nothing loops. You are making something to hold, not something to hang a finger in.

Lugs are the most forgiving handle on this page and the easiest to make badly, because there is no obvious right shape to aim at. The fix is to make them in pairs, side by side, and compare them before either one touches the pot.

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On bowls “Throwing / Making pottery bowls with lug handles the easy way.”
By Ingleton Pottery . A batch of soup bowls thrown on the wheel, with the lugs pressed out of a mold cast from a handle the potter made earlier, so they all come out the same size. The description calls the mold a bit of a cheat. Worth watching for how quickly a matching set goes on, even if you make yours by hand.
On flat dishes “SIMON LEACH POTTERY TV - Applying lugs to a flan/pie dish !”
By Simon Leach . Lugs on a wide shallow form, which is a different problem than lugs on a bowl. Useful if you make pie dishes, bakers, or anything with a rim to work off.
The part that decides everything

Attaching, in the order it actually happens

You can make a gorgeous handle and lose it here. Almost every handle that pops off in the kiln was attached in a hurry by somebody who was already thinking about the next pot.

This sequence works for every method above. Learn it once and it stops being a thing you think about.

Same sequence for either method above. Learn it once and it stops being a thing you think about.

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Watch first “HOW TO ATTACH HANDLES - TIPS and TRICKS”
By Jonthepotter . Tips and tricks for making and attaching mug handles. The title is about attaching them, and the description says the video covers making them too.

The one-day rule

The join area is thicker and wetter than everything around it. Give the whole piece a day loosely covered before you leave it out to dry properly, so the moisture has time to even out across the pot.

Rushing this is a common cause of a hairline crack that does not appear until after the glaze firing, which is the cruelest possible moment for it to appear.

Nobody’s favorite section

Drying is where handles are actually lost

You did the hard part. Now do the boring part, because a handle that cracks off in the kiln almost never failed because of how it was made. It failed because of how it dried.

Cover it loosely

Plastic draped over, not wrapped tight. You are slowing the air down, not sealing the piece in a bag. A day or two of that lets the thick join catch up with the thin walls. A cotton sheet does the same job more evenly, if you have one.

Upside down at the end

Once it is firm, stand the mug on its rim. The foot and the join are the thickest parts, so let them be the ones facing the air.

Away from moving air

Not by a door, a vent, a fan, or a window in July. Uneven airflow dries one side faster than the other, and uneven drying is just cracking with extra steps.

If you are going to see a crack, you will see it here

Check the two joins when the piece is bone dry and again after it comes out of the bisque. A hairline you catch at bone dry can sometimes be saved. One you find after glaze cannot.

A crack that opens in the kiln ends that piece. For a rough foot, a drip or a fused cookie, we wrote a whole separate guide: how to fix pottery after a firing .

Diagnostics

When it goes wrong

Tap whichever one is happening to you.

The three that happen while you are still sitting at the table.

It goes flat and wide

You are pulling on the same two faces every stroke. Rotate the carrot a quarter turn every few pulls and the section stays oval. This one fix solves more handle complaints than anything else.

It tears while you pull

The clay is too dry, your hand is too dry, or you are pulling faster than the clay can stretch. Wedge that one back up, start again softer, and slow the stroke down.

The arc sags after you bend it

You bent it while it was still too soft, so it keeps moving under its own weight. Let it stiffen over a curve until it holds the bend on its own before it goes near the pot.

It cracked at the join

Why

Almost always a moisture mismatch. The handle and the pot were at different stages when they met, so they shrank at different rates and tore each other at the seam.

Next time

Attach at soft leather hard on both pieces, score deep enough to feel, slip both faces, and cover the finished piece loosely for a day so the thick join can catch up.

This piece

If it is still damp, open the crack up, re-score, add fresh slip, press it back and blend. If it is bone dry, this one is a lesson rather than a mug.

Screenshot this one

The whole thing on one screen

Method-agnostic. Works whether you pulled it, rolled it, or cut it out of a slab.

Handle, start to shelf

Nine steps. Screenshot it, or leave this page open.

  • 1 Pot to soft leather hard. Trimmed already if it is getting trimmed.
  • 2 Make the handle from the same clay. The same stiffness as the pot.
  • 3 Make it thicker than you want it. You lose thickness at every later step.
  • 4 Give it the curve, then walk away. Let it stiffen over something round until it holds a bend.
  • 5 Cut both ends at an angle. Flat contact beats a butt join every time.
  • 6 Score deep, slip both faces. Feel the crosshatch with a fingernail.
  • 7 Press, small twist, support from inside. Blend the squeeze-out into the join.
  • 8 Look from above and from the front. Straighten now. There is no later.
  • 9 Cover loosely for a day, then dry slow. Rim-down at the end, away from moving air.
Questions we get

Handle questions, answered

Which handle method should a beginner start with?

Coil. It is the least frustrating way to get a handle that works, and it teaches you taper, curve and joining without also asking you to master a pull. Once coil handles feel easy, learn to pull off a carrot. Most people who quit on handles quit because they started with the hardest method on day one.

How thick should a mug handle be?

Roughly as thick as the wall of the mug at the top of the handle, tapering thinner toward the bottom join. Thicker than the wall dries slower and cracks. Much thinner than the wall snaps when somebody who is not you picks it up by the handle with a full cup of coffee in it.

Can I attach a handle to a bone dry pot?

Not reliably, no. Bone dry clay has finished shrinking and fresh clay has not, so the two pull against each other the entire way down. It will sometimes survive the bisque and then come apart in the glaze firing, which is worse than failing early. If the pot has gone too far, it is usually faster to make another pot than to fight it.

Do I really need slip, or is water enough?

Use slip. Water alone lubricates the two surfaces rather than gluing them, and the join relies on clay particles actually knitting together. Slip made from the same clay body is best, because it shrinks at the same rate as everything it is touching. A small tub of it next to you costs nothing and saves handles.

Why does my pulled handle keep going flat?

You are not rotating the clay. Pulling on the same two faces over and over squeezes it into a ribbon with sharp edges. Turn the carrot a quarter turn every few pulls and the section stays oval. This one fix solves more handle complaints than anything else on this page.

How long should a handle stiffen before I attach it?

Until it holds a curve without flopping and without cracking when you bend it. Depending on the room and the clay body, that is usually somewhere between twenty minutes and a couple of hours. Time is not the measure, feel is. Bend the end of a spare one and see what it does.

Can I make handles ahead of time and save them?

Yes, and it is a good habit. Pull a batch, curve them, and keep them wrapped so they hold at leather hard. They still have to match the moisture of the pot when you use them, so a bag of handles that has gone hard is a bag of nothing. Check them before you plan a session around them.

What about extruded handles?

An extruder pushes clay through a shaped die and gives you identical handles all day long, which is wonderful for matching sets. At The Clay Hole the wall extruder is a Black Level tool, so it is not part of what most members will be reaching for. Everything on this page is done with your hands and a table.

Should the handle go on before or after trimming?

After. Trimming means holding the pot upside down and putting pressure on it, and a handle in the way turns that into an awkward wrestling match. Trim the foot, let the pot settle back to soft leather hard, then handle it.

Is there a right place on the mug for the handle to sit?

There is no rule, but there is a reliable starting point: top join just below the rim, bottom join around the widest part or a little below the midpoint. From there it is about balance. Hold the mug as if it were full. If your wrist is doing work to keep it level, move the handle down.

Come make forty of them

Reading about handles is step one. Step two needs clay.

A Clay Hole membership gets you the wheels, the tables, the tools, the classes, and a shelf to line up all the handles that did not work while you figure out the ones that do. Green, Yellow, Purple or Black, whichever fits how often you can get here.

Become a member

Compare the four levels

Every video on this page belongs to the potter who made it, and none of them are ours. We link them because they are good. Nothing from YouTube loads until you press play.

The video on this page belongs to the potter who made it, and it is not ours. Nothing from YouTube loads until you press play. Three more methods, the drying rules and ten questions we get asked are all in the comprehensive version, back at the top of the page.