Buying for someone who makes pots is harder than it looks. They own a lot of small equipment, most of it looks interchangeable to anyone who does not use it, and the things they actually want are specific.
This is written from behind the counter of a supply shop, so take the bias as read. What follows is what people come in and buy for each other, and what we see returned in January.
One rule before the list. Buy for the work, not for the subject. A tool they will pick up every session is a better present than an object about pottery.
If you want the one thing they will not have
Gosu is the cobalt blue that Japanese porcelain has been painted with for four hundred years. It comes as a stiff paste rather than a bottled liquid, so the person using it decides how strong it goes on: one jar runs from a pale wash to a line that fires almost black. We buy ours direct from Fukaumi Shouten in Arita, who since March 2026 are the only company in western Japan still making it.
Gosu on porcelain. Photograph: Fukaumi Shouten.
Ten colours, 100g jars from £18. Three blues, two reds, an orange, a pink, a purple, a green and Shouenji. If you want to know what you are giving, we have written up where gosu comes from and how to use it.
It is a present for someone who decorates rather than someone who throws, and it is the hardest thing on this list to buy anywhere else in the UK.
Stocking fillers, and the small things nobody buys themselves
£10 and under, and this is where most of the good presents are. A maker replaces these when they finally break, not when they get worn, so a new one is genuinely welcome.
- A cutting wire, £4.50. Everyone's is frayed. Nobody replaces it.
- An underglaze marker pen, £10. Colour from a nib, which is the only sensible way to write a name or draw an outline on bisque. Eleven colours, so it is easy to pick one they will not already own.
- A black sponge on a stick, £5, for reaching the bottom of a thrown form without putting a hand in it.
- Mini loop tools, £3, for detail and small trimming.
- A stainless steel kidney, £3, or a wooden one at £7.50 for compressing and shaping.
Underglaze pencils, £11.50 each.
Four or five of these in a roll is a better present than one thing at the same price, and it costs less than a bottle of wine.
A year or two in
£25 to £75. Where an upgrade is actually felt, because they now know what the cheap version does badly.
Premium ribs in titanium and carbon fibre, £18.50. Thinner and more flexible than steel, and they do not rust in the bucket.
Carbide trimming tools from £37.50, on turned rosewood handles. Carbide holds its edge where steel wears down, so the tool is still cutting at the end of a session. The step up that most people feel first.
Tungsten steel trimming tools, £45, if they would rather have something they can sharpen themselves.
A Soolla studio pouch, £42, or the 30 pocket carryall, £62, for anyone who carries tools between studios. The most gift-shaped thing we sell to people who already own the tools.
The underglaze watercolour set, £42. Twelve solid colours in a tin with a water brush, lifted and diluted and layered the way you would on paper, then fired. It is the most gift-shaped thing in the shop: it looks like a paintbox, it needs no other equipment, and it works for someone who paints as well as someone who throws.
Twelve colours and a water brush, £42.
A book, which has its own short section below.
They are serious about it
This is the bracket where you can buy something they would not buy themselves, and where a supply shop can actually help, because most of what follows is hard to find in the UK.
Tungsten carbide trimming tools. The classic serious present. The Delta & Loop at £76 is the one to buy if you are buying one: two tips on a single handle, and the tips unscrew and get replaced rather than being glued in for life. The Hook at £86 is the other common choice. If you want to understand what you are paying for, we have written up how carbide tools work.
Korean potter's knives, SPD Tools, £38 to £48. One maker in Seoul grinds, sharpens and finishes every knife by hand, and it shows the moment you pick one up. Two blade shapes, straight for clean directional cuts and openwork, curved for following and refining a surface, in three thicknesses: 0.2mm, 0.4mm and 0.6mm. The thickness is the part that matters, and we have written up why a 0.2mm blade is a different tool from a 0.6mm one. They come boxed with a sheath, which makes them easy to give. We are one of very few places in the UK selling them.
They already have everything
Then stop buying objects.
A workshop is the present for this person, because it changes how they work rather than what they work with. The one day Explore Glaze Making at £170 is for someone who makes pots but has never mixed a glaze, which is most people. Foundations of Glaze Making is the three day course and the serious one. For anyone outside London, the online course Mastering Ceramic Glazes is £300 self-paced or £450 with live sessions.
A gift voucher if you would rather they chose. For a maker this is closer to a book token than a gift card: they will spend it on something specific they have been putting off, and ours can be spent on workshops as well as on the shelf.
Kiln firing, from £10, for the person with finished work and nowhere to fire it.
Books
A handful worth giving, rather than a list.
The Potter's Book of Glaze Recipes, £30, is the standard reference. If they mix their own glazes and do not own it, buy it.
Developing Glazes, £20, for someone who has started testing and wants a method rather than recipes.
Wild Clay, £32, for the one who keeps picking clay up on walks.
Shoji Hamada: A Potter's Way and Work, £35, is the one to buy if they already own the technical books.
One we do not sell and would still recommend: Around the World in 80 Pots, £22, from the Ashmolean. Eighty pots, one per spread, from across the collection. It is the book to give someone who makes pots and would like to look at other people's for a change. We are not stocking it, so buy it wherever you buy books.
What not to buy
The honest part, and the reason to send this to whoever is about to get it wrong.
A pottery wheel. The obvious big present and almost always the wrong one. Wheels are personal, heavy, and need space and a sink. Anyone who wants one already knows which. If they are saving for a wheel, put money towards theirs rather than choosing it for them.
Clay. Unless you know their clay body and what temperature their kiln fires to. The wrong clay cannot be used and cannot be returned once the bag is open. Same for glaze if they fire somewhere with a fixed schedule. Ask, or buy a voucher.
More of the tools they were given last year. Most makers have three sets of the same loop tools from three Christmases. If you do not know what they own, the small things at the top of this list or a book are safer than the tools in the middle.
Where to buy, including where that is not us
We sell glazes, clay, raw materials, tools and books, and we have written about the rest of the London shelf in where to buy ceramic supplies in London.
We do not sell wheels, kilns or large equipment, and we are not the place to buy them. For those, go to a supplier who installs and services them, because the after-sale matters more than the price. Bath Potters' Supplies and Blue Matchbox are both worth a call.
