Catching up
Aug. 2nd, 2018 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrThe last few days of a firing cycle are busy. Glazing fifty to seventy-five pots a day, then loading, firing, unloading. Sorting and pricing and loading the van for my next sale. I get a little behind.
The timing was tougher than usual too, this time. We usually load on Sunday, fire Monday, unload Wednesday, so I have Tuesday off, while the kiln cools, to catch up on chores, office work. This time we fired Friday, so my "day off" was spent at Saturday Market, and as the firing went 'til after 9 pm Friday, I was more than a little zonked. Add in the fact that the temperature hit 90° pretty much every day of the firing cycle, and you can see how things might get lost in the shuffle.
Like blog posts.
So here's three snapshots to catch you up while I get ready to set up in Anacortes this evening.
1. A para-fox.
I took an order at Edmonds last June for something new: a covered pasta bowl. The customer wanted a fox pattern; I asked if I should paint it on the lid or in the bowl, and he said Why not both?
Here it is ready to load into the kiln, looking lovely. Not show: How it looked half an hour later, after the know snagged on the roof of the kiln and broke off. Or the sound my heart made when that happened.
It's theoretically possible to weld a broken knob on with glaze, but it's anything but certain whether it'll stay put in the firing. Safer to start from scratch, for my September firing.
2. Koalaty workmanship.
Oh, right, like you thought I could pass that one up... And anyway, I had to show off something from what turned out a very nice firing.
3. Harvest time.
Last job before I went in to pack for Anacortes : Water the garden and collect the produce. Clockwise from top left, we have: Mystery red apples, windfalls from the Lutheran Church lot next door; snow peas, var. Oregon Giant, from our garden; blackberries, growing wild over the carport, because it's Oregon; Blue Lake green beans from our new raised bed; Gravenstein apples from our tree; and tomatoes, mostly Sungold cherries, which are trying to take over the whole garden.
So there's another thing handmade pottery is good for...
The timing was tougher than usual too, this time. We usually load on Sunday, fire Monday, unload Wednesday, so I have Tuesday off, while the kiln cools, to catch up on chores, office work. This time we fired Friday, so my "day off" was spent at Saturday Market, and as the firing went 'til after 9 pm Friday, I was more than a little zonked. Add in the fact that the temperature hit 90° pretty much every day of the firing cycle, and you can see how things might get lost in the shuffle.
Like blog posts.
So here's three snapshots to catch you up while I get ready to set up in Anacortes this evening.
1. A para-fox.
I took an order at Edmonds last June for something new: a covered pasta bowl. The customer wanted a fox pattern; I asked if I should paint it on the lid or in the bowl, and he said Why not both?
Here it is ready to load into the kiln, looking lovely. Not show: How it looked half an hour later, after the know snagged on the roof of the kiln and broke off. Or the sound my heart made when that happened.
It's theoretically possible to weld a broken knob on with glaze, but it's anything but certain whether it'll stay put in the firing. Safer to start from scratch, for my September firing.
2. Koalaty workmanship.
Oh, right, like you thought I could pass that one up... And anyway, I had to show off something from what turned out a very nice firing.
3. Harvest time.
Last job before I went in to pack for Anacortes : Water the garden and collect the produce. Clockwise from top left, we have: Mystery red apples, windfalls from the Lutheran Church lot next door; snow peas, var. Oregon Giant, from our garden; blackberries, growing wild over the carport, because it's Oregon; Blue Lake green beans from our new raised bed; Gravenstein apples from our tree; and tomatoes, mostly Sungold cherries, which are trying to take over the whole garden.
So there's another thing handmade pottery is good for...