For those of you who make “stuff,” I’m sure you’re doing the last minute hustle to get all the Holiday presents finished. I think I have one more kiln firing then I’ll be ready.
The ornament above was part of a custom order for members of the local Morgan Horse Youth Group. It was sort of a problem order; first round, the ornaments warped. I cut out some new ones, no problem. THEN during the glaze firing, every single one of them had glaze flaws. So I touched them up and put them through again. All the pieces made it out of the decal firing, which was nothing less than a miracle (not hot enough and the decal rubs off: too hot, it burns off).
I have the other problem of the stuff coming out of the kiln in this weather. It was -3 this morning up on the hill. I discovered that the trick is to wrap all the pieces in a dishtowel when I bring them up to the house. Then, no peeking for hours! They need to warm up slowly or else the glaze crazes. Incidently, I’m also not that interested in unloading the kiln with bare hands in this weather. As soon as tax season starts the little kiln will come back down to the office so I can fire and do taxes at the same time.
I’ll be participating in the Beads-of-Clay winter swap this year, so I need to get those pieces finished. I CANNOT wait to get that package in the mail. It will be a late x-mas/early b-day present. Other than that I’m taking a break from custom orders till January. I need to get some planning done for the upcoming year. I have a notebook full of ideas to play with and new techniques to implement.
Thank you for all your support over the last year, and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!