Glaze kiln loaded

I just fired up a glaze kiln - its almost 2am and I had a hurry-up glaze session going tonight. I taught a kids' pottery class today so as soon as they finished I cleaned up that mess and started glazing. One of the sculptural pieces in this kiln is sold - pending approval of the final appearance - and it is needed as a wedding gift. The purchaser is flying out on Wednesday so I need this sculpture out of the kiln on Tuesday, hence the rush job.

My daughter, Amy, came down at midnight and helped me finish up so that was awesome. She also made homemade chicken dumpling soup for supper! I have several styles of flower vases/centerpieces in the kiln, pasta dishes, dipping bowls for salsa, flavored oils, wasabi, etc., larger bowls, some madonnas and a couple other sculptures. I hope things turn out - glazing always makes me nervous. I'd so much rather just make the pieces and let someone else worry about glazing them!

We are missing our granddaughters - it was SO fun having them for a week. I'm putting together a photo album of our time together and will send it along with some things I forgot to pack and a few little gifts I got on sale.

I'll post photos here of my new pottery - be sure to come back and check it out!

Red buffalo, teacups, jewelry and pottery frames

The red glaze came on Monday evening, and I had the kiln fired up 2 hours later. This morning I opened it to find most of my beads melted onto the kiln shelf. I learned a lot about glazing beads this time around. I wish I didn't have to learn most lessons the hard way...

But, the good news...6 little buffalo, oh, so happily, standing up nice and tall and proud! I love the new glaze - it is a rich dark red, and the feel of it is wonderful, too. I think I'll try it on some mugs and other things next time around. Everything except my jewelry and my biggest bowl came through the firing intact, with no surprises. The biggest bowl has a crack on the foot ring - darn!

I've started working on felting and weaving landscapes inside the new pottery frames...the first one is flax fields, with a river in the middle and a stormy sky. I love the wonderful blue color of flax fields and decided to incorporate it into my landscape. I'm trying to get it finished so I can hang it in at the Dakota Harvest Bakery on Friday (the show will be up until Nov. 17).