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The Clay Hole University · Trimming, Handles and Drying

Cotton Sheets or Plastic BagsPrintable pottery guide

Which cover a piece needs, and how to put it on: what a cotton sheet and a plastic bag each do to the water in a pot, a table for the pieces you make most, the sheet method, the bag method, both together, and what to do when a cover goes wrong.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 24 printable pages
  • 5 video picks
  • 7-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any printer
  • The lesson stays free
The printable, at a glance

What is the Cotton Sheets or Plastic Bags printable guide?

It is the drying shelf on paper: what a cotton sheet and a plastic bag each do to a pot, how to read a piece before you cover it, a decision table for the pieces you make most, how to drape a sheet and use a stack of them as a dial, how to tent a bag and when to close its mouth, when to use both, and what to do about each fault. Built to be printed, kept at the shelf and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Cotton Sheets or Plastic Bags” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 24printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 13glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For the piece you are about to walk away from

What goes over it decides how it dries

Every piece dries from the outside in, and the thin parts finish first. A rim, a handle, an ear and a corner all race ahead of the base, and a crack is what it looks like when they win. The only steering you have is what you put over the piece before you leave it.

A plastic bag and a cotton sheet look like two versions of the same thing. They are not. The bag stops drying where it touches and lets it run where it gapes. The sheet slows every part of the pot by the same amount. One holds a piece, the other evens it out, and some pieces want both.

The guide puts that choice in a table, then gives you the two methods a step at a time, each with a tick list you can mark at the shelf. It also has a page to write down every piece you cover and what the cover did, so next time you start from what worked.

Look inside

Real pages, for a shelf with wet work on it

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark.

  • Page 3 of the “Cotton Sheets or Plastic Bags” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before you cover anything: what you will learn, what to have at the shelf, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls, and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 5 of the “Cotton Sheets or Plastic Bags” printable guide: the two tools, shown with the sample watermark
    The two toolsWhat a plastic bag and a cotton sheet each do to the water in a pot, in four short paragraphs, and the one thing cotton cannot do.
  • Page 12 of the “Cotton Sheets or Plastic Bags” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongThe last two video cards, then the start of the troubleshooting section: what caused each fault and what to do differently next time, beginning with the rim that curled up on a plate.
  • Page 17 of the “Cotton Sheets or Plastic Bags” printable guide: every piece you cover, and what the cover did, shown with the sample watermark
    Every piece you cover, and what the cover didA log to write in: the piece, its thinnest part, what went over it, the days under cover, whether a bag was open or shut, and how it dried.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

You decide it with a piece in your hands

A cover is chosen at the shelf, at the end of a session, with clay on your hands and a piece that needs putting down. Paper suits that.

  • The table sits beside the piece

    The choice is one table you can read at a glance: the piece, the cover, how long, and why. It does not scroll away when your hands are wet.

  • Tick lists you can mark

    Each of the four steps ends in a short tick list. Mark it with a pencil while the sheet is still in your hand, and you know you did all of it.

  • A number to write down

    The log has a row for every piece you cover. After a few weeks it tells you which cover your own shelf really wants.

  • One page for the shelf

    The one page summary has which cover, the sheet, the bag and what to look at when it goes wrong. It pins up where you work.

How this one is built

Rebuilt for paper, not printed from a web page

Every guide in the series is set from scratch for print. Here is what that meant for this one.

  • Video notes that say what the video shows

    Several notes in the free lesson described things the videos do not show. We checked each against the video’s own description, chapter list and frames, and rewrote them in the guide and in the lesson.

  • Dust left out of the advice

    The free lesson told a reader with a piece that had dried past trimming to sand and rib a bone dry foot. That makes silica dust. The guide and the lesson now say to mist and bag a piece that is only a little past leather hard, and to leave a bone dry piece alone or wet sand it after the bisque.

  • Written for any studio

    What is specific to The Clay Hole, such as who takes a sheet from the basket and which bag sizes sit on the shelf, is kept in one section and named, so a reader working somewhere else knows which lines are a rule of the craft.

  • A quiz that explains itself

    A short quiz, and an answer key that gives the reason behind every answer rather than only the letter.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a video moves, we repoint the address and your printed copy still goes to the right place.

  • A page to keep by the shelf

    The one page summary is the whole decision on a single sheet: which cover, the sheet, the bag, and what to look at when it goes wrong.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Cotton Sheets or Plastic Bags” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Setting a pot on the shelf feels like the end of the job. It is not. There are days of quiet work still to do, and the only say you have in how that goes is what you put over it.

Most people are not careless about this. They are guessing.

They do different jobs, and once you can say what each one does, the guessing stops.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
The series

Build a little pottery library

Every printable guide in The Clay Hole University series takes one free lesson and rebuilds it for paper, with workbook pages, a glossary and a quiz with a worked answer key. Each one keeps its number for good, so a guide you buy today is the same guide in the same place next year.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

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Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where this one leaves off

Each one is free to read online, and the codes in the guide take you straight there.

Questions

Good to know

How is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is not going anywhere. The guide is that teaching rebuilt for paper: a learning dashboard at the front, a log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Which is better, a sheet or a bag?
Neither, because they do different jobs. A bag stops drying, unevenly. A sheet slows drying, evenly. The guide has a table that says which one each common piece wants, and when to use both.
Do I need cotton sheets from a studio?
No. One hundred percent cotton with the highest thread count you can find, from home, does the job. The guide says why a poly blend does not breathe the same way and why a coarse weave prints into soft clay.
Do I need a special bag?
No. An ordinary plastic bag one size bigger than the piece, tented over it so it never lies on wet clay. The guide shows how to hold it off a tall piece and when to leave its mouth open or shut.
Does it work if I dry my pots at home?
Yes. The guide is written for potters everywhere, and the few things that are specific to The Clay Hole sit in one section marked as such. The reasoning about thin parts, thick parts and how soon you are back applies on any shelf.
Can it hold a piece for weeks?
A closed bag with a damp paper towel inside holds a piece at leather hard for about a week. For work that has to wait longer, the guide points you to the free lesson on building a damp box at home.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Beginner. You need to feel whether a piece is soft, leather hard or bone dry, and to answer three questions about it before you cover it. No wheel skills are needed.
What do I need besides clay?
Cotton sheets, plastic bags, a plastic storage bat, a dowel or chopstick to hold a bag off a tall piece, and paper towels for a holding bag. The guide lists all of it on the dashboard.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is set for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Does it print in black and white?
Yes. Nothing in it depends on color to make sense: the text, the tick boxes and the tables are black on white, and color is used for headings and small labels.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The decision table, the one page summary and the log are the three worth having at the shelf. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
Can I read it on a screen instead?
Yes. It is an ordinary PDF and it reads fine on a tablet or a phone. The workbook pages are the ones that want paper, because you write on them.
How does delivery work?
It is a digital download. The link arrives by email and on the order confirmation page right after checkout, so you can have it printed and at the shelf the same evening.
What happens if the guide is updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When we correct or improve one, the new edition replaces the old one in the shop, and we can send the updated link to anybody who already bought it.
Can I share it?
It is licensed for your own use. Print as many copies for yourself as you like, on as many of your own devices as you like. Please do not pass the file on, upload it or use it with a class or a group without asking us first.

Decide the cover before you walk away

Find the thinnest part, find the thickest, and know the day you are coming back. Then read the cover off the table, tent the bag, and keep the plastic off the wet clay. It is a short habit, and it decides whether the piece is at the stage you wanted when you return. The guide keeps the table in front of you at the shelf.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b