Huge Improvement and New Pots!

The floors upstairs are done... Yay! These floors were never finished at all and were covered with paint splotches and stains. I wasn't so sure they'd come out good but man, they look awesome, they glow. They should be much easier to keep clean too.  Here are before, during and after shots, ignore the duct tape covering on the fireplace!

So I just unloaded the kiln and the blister problem I've been battling and babbling on about to anyone who would listen is almost solved. On the advice of John Britt, I basically slowed down the firing and bisqued a little higher (I reattached the vent to my electric kiln, too). I also tried different clays and may just switch to a different clay altogether. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the last firing. I was starting to get really bummed about it, almost afraid to put a lot of energy into any one pot just to have it get ruined in the firing.

Here are a couple of shots we took since the last post.

Angry Bird

We thought our Rhode Island Red was so nice, but after we added the new chickens last summer, she showed her true nature. She's reeeallllly mean! She jumps on the tops of the younger birds and pecks at the back of their heads. They all look like they've lost chunks of feathers here and there from her. I don't think she actually hurts them, but we did see blood in the coop once. We've pretty much just let it be and resolved ourselves to watching the pecking order in action. The other chickens have learned to live with it, too, and for the most part and get out of her way when they can.

We're adding more garden space! I can't wait for Spring, I know the northeast has been hit way worse than NC but man, this has been one rotten winter.

Here are some new pots I've been working on. I've been obsessed with patterns lately.

Busy, busy.

I'm in the home stretch getting ready for my Fall shows. Last week I had a terrible firing (most of the pots came out with terrible blisters, ugh), so I made some more, loaded the kiln and tried again. The kiln is cooling today so I won't know until tomorrow if the adjustments I made worked. Fingers crossed.

This weekend Aaron added on to the shelter over the kiln. He extended the roof for more shade and rain cover and built a table I can use for loading pots. I've already used it and it's gonna make my life a lot easier. It definitely beats what I was using for a table,  cinderblocks and an old door. 

Here's a picture of Spot, our new cat. She's turning out to be a good mouser already. Now our 12-year old cat, Teddy, is missing. He's been gone since Thursday when there were tornadoes in the area. I'm wondering if he didn't get turned around in the storm, everyday I keep thinking he'll show up.

Here's Gertie doing downward dog pose.

Cedar Creek woodfire pix

Two weeks ago I took part in a woodfiring at Cedar Creek Gallery as part of their fall pottery fest. It was a group firing with Carolina Designer Craftsmen potters to coincide with the CDC show in the gallery. Thanks to Deb Harris for organizing it!

The firing went smoothly, we finished in about 12 hours or so. The pots came out good, I had a bunch in there and was really happy with most of them. Here are photos of the firing (that's Deb in back), me spraying soda and a couple of pots. I got there too late to get good photos of everyone's work. People who participated are Deb Harris, Lois Sharpe, Gillian Parke, Trish Welsh, Wendy Panko, Devin, Gaines and me.

Firing #2

Just unloaded the kiln, and I'm pretty happy with the results. There are a couple of things to work out, I'm having issues with my turquoise glaze blistering in the front third of the kiln. I can't figure out if it's getting too hot up there or if there's too much soda or what. I'll probably just put pots with that glaze on them in the back from now on.

Here are a couple of pics.

Up and running, for real.

I fired the kiln on Monday for the second time. The first firing came out a little light on the soda and I was pretty bummed. I have shows looming and a shop that's been waiting for pots and it feels like forever that I've been without a kiln.

So I was more than a little anxious to see how this load turned out. But yesterday I unloaded the pots and I'm super happy with the results. Yay!! What a huge relief. Now I can get back to work making more pots!

This is our cat Lucky.

Kiln Planning.

Nothing like a deadline to get things going. We set the date a couple of weeks ago and this weekend we're gonna build a kiln, with a little help from my clay friends, Jo, Trish and Vicki.

I built it in my head a couple of times and laid it out on paper, then I read in a book to use legos to build a model. At first I thought it was a little goofy but I found some legos up in the attic and gave it a try. I soon realized it was a really good idea to work it out in legos instead of 8 pound bricks. Next thing you know I was ordering legos online because I didn't have enough. I built and rebuilt this little model three times now. I'm basically going with the same kiln as last time except a little bigger so I won't have to fire as often, and I'm changing the ports a little to make the soda more even.

So far we've got the pad laid (Gertie took a little stroll through the wet concrete), the shed area cleaned out and gravel down so it isn't so muddy, and the hole cut in the roof for the chimney. And I've started moving bricks over to the site, that's going kinda slow. Here's a picture of one of the pallets of new bricks, you can see the big floor bricks on the corner there. The big pieces are supposed to be more stable according to the brick guy, man they're heavy.