Perfect bowl, and new kiln in action!!

First of all, I'm really into exclamation points today!! I have had a excellent Sunday--went to church, fired kiln, watched movie and Mythbusters. That's about it so far! Wonderful laziness.
So, I went out to check on the kiln and noticed that the few bowls I threw last night were ready for trimming, so I sat down and trimmed one. It was a little warped from cooling too fast, so in my amazing intelligence, I attempted to squeeze it back round, knowing the entire time what would happen. Guess what--it broke. I laughed at myself. So I came back a while later and trimmed another few. One in particular came out AMAZING!! I don't usually get super excited about bowls, or really brag on my work, but this bowl came out so well, I just have to. It is light and oh so well proportioned; the foot is just immaculate and, well, it is just the best little bowl ever!! It still needs to be cleaned up a little bit once bone dry, but you get the idea.

Check this baby out!


As I said, I fired my kiln today. Well, right now it's still going, but it is getting mighty close to temp. Here is a couple pictures of it in action!



I just checked the kiln and it is firing perfectly evenly!!! All three cone five witness cones are tipping the same!! Even my little kiln doesn't fire evenly and it is half the size. It can be a half cone off from top to bottom. What's up with that?? Anyway, have a great week to all three of you that read this with any regularity! :)

Yay for new kiln!!!!!

I finally went to Georgetown to get my new kiln! It was given to me by my grandmother who no longer makes her beautiful porcelain dolls. She had previously given me the smaller kiln that I had been using like mad, and she recently decided to give me her bigger computer controlled kiln. The new kiln is exactly twice the size of my old one, so I should be able to make more and larger pots. She also sent a huge box full of kiln posts! I can fit soooo much stuff in there that I can't wait to get to work filling it! I am going to do a glaze firing in it this weekend--most of the work is being re-fired, so unless it overfires by a lot, I'm not too worried. She didn't use it very often, so it is in pristine condition. I'm going to put in some witness cones to do a temp check, but I'm pretty sure it should go just fine. I can't wait to start using some ramp hold firings so that I can get rid of some of my pinhole problems.

I've got my first show coming up on April 12th called 'April in Meggett.' It is a small show, but from what I've heard, it gets a pretty decent turnout. I hope that it goes well and that I sell some stuff. I don't have any expectations, so I don't think I will be disappointed either way.

Oh yeah, the dog in the picture is my wonderful puggle Layla. She's just a bit crazy--caught her eating clay a couple of times. :)

Featured on Dharma Designs!

Hey everyone! I just got featured in another's blog! Check it out!

http://dharmadesigns.blogspot.com/

Out of the pottery funk!

I'm finally out of my pottery funk! I had been making work that really wasn't my best, and it was getting me down. This last firing came out really well and I've got some great new glaze combinations to build on. Here are a couple of the new pieces that I really like!

Salt and Pepper Challenge!!

The Mud Team is having a Salt and Pepper Shaker challenge! My entry is a stoppered, stopperless salt and pepper combo. Here's a pic.

You can vote here:
http://etsymudteam.freeweb7.com/page3.html

Kiln Disasters

Ok. So all potters have disasters. I've had them before, and I'll have them again. But two kiln disasters in one week really sucks. Granted, they were both totally my fault. But I am still pissed anyway. This first is a glaze disaster. These pictures show a sampling of the total destruction that a new glaze can do without testing. I can't yet mix my own glazes due to storage constraints, so this was a commercial glaze that should have been more stable. It was of course the most expensive of my new glazes. Anyway, it pinholed, it crawled, and it blistered. About half of my small kiln load was ruined. Oh well.

The second kiln mishap happened tonight. I threw a couple of 'big for me' pitchers. One was about 14-1/2" tall when wet, the other about 12-1/2". I let them dry for what I thought was ample time and they didn't feel wet or cold when I started the kiln, but the bigger one blew up anyway. There I was, throwing a teapot, and BOOM! It didn't really mess anything else up in the kiln, which is a good thing since my S&P shakers for the Mud Team competition were in there. But it was still one of my favorites, and I really loved the shape. Now it has a big ass hole in the side.

POST HOLIDAY SALE

Poster for Etsy Mud Team Post Holiday Sale
Originally uploaded by intothefire

The etsy mud team has organized a post holiday sale and raffle! I am offering a 10% discount on everything in my shop!! Check out all of the great shops participating.