Sunday, November 4, 2012

Breathe

 Can we just breathe now?
We really did hold our breath on this load and, it paid off, all except the brain damage from lack of oxygen.

The mugs are not only out of the kiln, but, but!, they are packed for shipping.

And, and! we did not kill one another in the process. This is good news. Not one potter was injured either mentally or physically in the unloading or packing of these mugs.
The mugs.
Those mugs.
Those sweet, precious mugs,bless their pea-picking hearts, all made it through the fire.
Deep sigh of relief.
The order was for 80 mugs.
 Of the 90 made 78 made it through the bisque stage.
78 are packed for shipping. (happy face here)

Here was the biggest fear of all the fears we had. We thought that some of these might open up like the people in Alien the movie. You know where the baby births out of the chest kicking and screaming. This is what we imagined could happened to these mugs, that they would crack and split wide open. No more late night horror or science fiction movies for me just being a potter is enough to make one whacky.

With this said and you can tell me later I put this in writting.
I would do this again.
Yep, you heard it here.
We did learn something and I would do this again with enough advanced notice and hopefully not right before Christmas.

As far as the rest of the load goes it was a great firing.
Mark pulled off another good firing and even did a little something different at the end of the fring that he feels helped all the glazes. You will have to get him to explain it to you.

One of the reasons that I feel the kiln fired well was we planned to the T how we were going to load this kiln. I did a blow by blow on paper of what went on each shelf and how many inches each shelf  had to be. Now there was some flex room left in there as the crown pots went taller than I had planned  by 2 1/2 inches. Meaning the 14 inches I had planned needed to be 16 1/2.  But, we have some thinner shelves that helped make up the difference in height.


 Mark made some lamps for this kiln load that came out really gorgeous. The iron reds came out just like we like as did the toasty color of the Spodumune glaze.

Below is a cream and sugar that has all the elements that make me love this glaze.



What is next for us?
Some tiles for me and a  local show coming up for us the week-end of the 17th.and 18th of November. The Celebration of Seagrove Potters is held here in Seagrove at the old cannery for Luck's Beans.

And, we will start on the next kiln load to fire sometime in December.
Need any mugs?


Thanks for being there!
M

20 comments:

Judy Shreve said...

Now a happy happy dance! So many non-potters just don't realize all the hard work and planning that has to happen and that potential for aliens .. . . . they just don't know.

Gorgeous firing. Tell Mark what ever he did -- it worked!

YAY!

smartcat said...

WOW! It all looks great! So happy the mugs not only made it but are wildlt success ful.

cookingwithgas said...

Thanks!!! pretty relived over here in whynot.

Unknown said...

Outstanding! And some very pretty work (c:

cookingwithgas said...

Thank you Richard!

Anna M. Branner said...

Such great news! Those mugs are gorgeous! Whoot!

Linda Starr said...

wonderful to hear, the kiln gods were with you both for sure.

Shortstuff said...

EXcellent! So glad the mugs survived. BIG sigh of relief.

cookingwithgas said...

Whoot! Anna
Thanks Linda, they were.
Les- thanks!

Dennis Allen said...

Excellent mugs. Glad to hear everyone survived.

cookingwithgas said...

thanks Dennis- I hate a blood bath over pots...

DirtKicker Pottery said...

Many more of your beautiful pots going out into the world :) They turned out fantastic. Cheers!

ang design said...

woohoo congrats on those mugs!!! and such awesome planning....can i say OOOOOOH TILES :)) we should do another show!!!!!!

cookingwithgas said...

Thanks Cindy!
Ang- a tile show!!

Gary's third pottery blog said...

JUST BEAUTIFUL :)

Lori Buff said...

Everything looks really great. 30 years of pottery shows itself in Marks confidence to make a slight change in the firing with this big order sitting inside the kiln. I'm so glad it worked out so perfectly for you.

Tracey Broome said...

Oh no! I don't have a Whynot blue mug..... Yet :)
Glad they mostly behaved for you!

cookingwithgas said...

Tb- you need one- we can work that out you know. Look deep in my eyes you are getting very sleepy......


Thanks Lori and Gary!

Quietly Otaku said...

Those mugs look awesome, congratulations! kiln shelves always are deceptively chunky!

Susan Gallacher-Turner said...

Beautiful work! Love that glaze with the blue/black! And you got your order done and shipped...Whooo HOOO to both of you.

So glad no one was injured in the process :)