Success is its own punishment

[offcntr]

How successful was Clayfolk? I don't have the numbers yet, only know that I did over $2300 in sales on Friday alone. Checks should have gone in the mail Wednesday, so I hope to have my final info tomorrow.

I do know that I was successful enough that I had to load a glaze kiln on Monday in order to have pots for Holiday Market on Friday.

I came back from Medford with less than a dozen each of dinner and dessert plates. Two pie plates. Three batter bowls and one covered casserole. I had some replacements in the shed for the batter bowls and casseroles, but none for the plates.

Fortunately, I had a substantial amount of glazed ware sitting on the shelf, leftover from my last firing, almost enough to do a four-stack firing in the big gas kiln (I normally do six shelves, stacked). I also had a kiln load of bisque ware, and some prepared, dry, cone packs, so I only needed to glaze about ten pots on Monday, and then went ahead and loaded up the kiln. Fired it on Tuesday, and filled the time while it cooked making more pottery for my next firing, still scheduled for two weeks out, casseroles and batter bowls, mostly, a few pie dishes. I also brought the van down, so pulled out all the boxes of pottery and did a physical inventory, so I'd know what I needed to restock. Finished the firing about 3 pm, with roughly the same gas usage as the last four-stack I did, back in July. I won't have everything I'd like for the weekend, but I'll be a lot better prepared than I would have been otherwise.

Left everything in the kiln room to firm up for an hour or two before wrapping in plastic, so that I could come back Wednesday morning to apply handles, remove things from bats, and then scrape the bats off to take home. Ended the day at the fairgrounds, setting up my booth for Holiday Market.

Comments

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That is a LOT of work. Still, some problems are nice to have.

In case you also do mailorder, there are Winterfaires starting up where crafters can post their wares.

Re: Wow!

[offcntr]

Honestly, I don't need anymore orders right now. I can barely keep up with current demand. Thanks for the tip, though, I'll have to check this out.