What to say when she says she's been taking pottery with friends

The part that matters most is that she's doing something regular and hands-on with people she likes. The friends are context. You don't know yet whether they're close friends, a group she's in on the side, or people she met through the class. Don't treat the friends as competition or as a reason to ask questions about them. Let her bring them up if she wants to.

The bit you can actually respond to is the activity itself. Pottery is messy, slow, and full of small failures, which makes it easy to talk about without performing. If she mentions a piece that didn't turn out, that's a natural thread. If she mentions the class is on Thursdays, she's telling you her schedule without saying so. Notice what she gives you and build from it.

A question that works here is about the thing she made or the thing that's difficult. Something like asking what the hardest part has been, or how the piece she's proud of came out. These give her room to tell a small story, which is the easiest kind of reply to keep going.

What doesn't work is a question about your future. Asking whether she'd want to do it with you, or whether you can join, asks her to make a decision about you in the middle of a casual exchange. If that interest is real it will still be there after she's answered the question about her mug. Let it show up later, once there's been more back and forth.

If she replies warmly, you can keep going for a couple of exchanges, then let it rest. Pottery conversations tend to run out naturally once the piece is described. That's a fine place to stop. You don't need to find a new topic every message to prove you're interested.

If she doesn't reply at all, wait a few days before anything else, and then only send something light that doesn't require an answer. A second message that asks the same question again reads as pressure. If that also gets nothing, let the thread go. She can come back to it on her own.