Drying time

Humidity is not my friend! It's taking forever for my clay to dry. I set some things outside today for a little drying time in the sun. I've been playing around with making some vases. These are all hand made on my pottery wheel and I added flowers when the vases were leather hard.

Cornbread bakers and Chicken bakers. I love cooking chicken in my chicken bakers, it's like having rotisserie chicken from the oven.

Kiln drama continued...

Ok so, to continue my kiln drama from yesterday.
I  woke up and headed  straight down to my studio (in my basement) to check my kiln.
Of course the top shelf was perfectly fine, it was the bottom shelf that I was worried about. I unloaded the top and removed the top shelf and this is what I saw. I took the pictures as I was seeing it for the first time.

I completely forgot I put that little plaque in there and it saved my shelf!!!! *sigh of relief*

And... those 2 mugs that look like they are touching...

 

I'm so, so lucky!!! This could have been bad enough to put me out of business for a while. 

I'm breathing much easier this morning and I may have let out a little squeal when I saw the outcome.

Dumb luck or the kiln gods were watching over me, either way I'm so thankful.

Yay for the storque!!

YAY!!! I was featured today by Etsy on their blog for father's day gifts! woohoo!
The picture is click-able if you'd like to see some great ideas for Father's Day shopping.

I may be close to a full blown freak out

I stayed home today and skipped my usual market visit so that I could work. I fired my kiln and as I was flipping on the final switch and closing a peep hole, I heard a noise. Trying not to panic I calmly opened the peep hole back up so that I could peek inside and yes, it was just as I had feared, I had a tip over.
On the bottom shelf I have some travel mugs stilted so that they don't stick to the kiln shelf and evidently the stilt wasn't as stable as I thought it was and a mug has flipped over on it's side *ugh!!!!*.
Usually when something like this happens it's like domino's. I've never had it happen during a firing.  I can only imagine that when it flipped, it probably hit another mug. It's almost impossible not to hit another mug actually and I'm thinking the mug it hit may be laying against the wall of the kiln *ugh!!!! x10*
So I'm pretty well just sick at the thought of opening my kiln to see what damage there could be. I may be looking at side wall and element damage. The shelf that it's laying on will be a mess, the mug will adhere to it and will have to be chiseled off if the kiln wash isn't thick enough. Kiln wash is a chalky wash that you brush onto your shelves to help prevent glaze drips from sticking, not sure how it will holdup against a mug sticking. So... I may be using a grinder to clean the shelf. The more I think about all the ugliness that could be waiting for me the worse I feel. I'm seriously stressed out, this could not be happening at a worse time.

 I have to wait until tomorrow when it's cooled down before I can open my kiln to have a look.

new and improved!

I stayed up late last night designing a new banner for my Esty shop. It was long over due and I think I'm pleased with the outcome. I used a picture of me working at my pottery wheel and one of my travel mugs, mixed together with a little photoshop, bake at 350 and waalaaa!! Here it is.

Canons, clay and family stuff

The past 2 weeks have been pretty crazy with family stuff. This past weekend my dad, my step mom and my aunt came to visit for the weekend, it was wonderful to see them. It was the first time my aunt had been to Georgia. It was wonderful having her down to visit.

Me & My aunt Yvonne

I'm trying to get back on track, I have a pretty large work load going right now and my Etsy shop has been pretty busy with sales. I just reached one of my goals with 500 sales this weekend! yay me!
This morning I was back to work, my salt pigs have become a big hit, here's a quicky picture of me working on the latest batch this morning. 

You gonna eat your cornbread?

Every time I make a cornbread baker or use mine, the scene from the movie "Life"  pops into my head. "Life" is that movie that Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and Bernie Mac were all in prison... Oh go rent it. It's a good movie. Ok back to pottery ;o)
This is my newest cornbread baker, fresh from my kiln.  I changed the way I do my handles, this angle shows the newest style best I think.

Oh and I found a clip on youtube!!!! If you have young ones around, put on your head phones, the F-bomb is dropped a lot. The video will not load on this page, but a link will pop up saying "embedding disabled by request, Click here to watch". Click that, and watch it on youtube.

(****WARNING video contains adult language*****)