Every Year

It happens every year.  It doesn't matter how much we try to plan ahead, we find ourselves the week before Christmas needing to get in one more glaze fire.  I guess it's because I'm pretty much only at the studio on the weekends, but this year, Christmas snuck up on me.  I realized on Wednesday morning (Dec 21) that if we were going to get those last pieces done before Christmas Eve, that I needed to fire THAT NIGHT.  I knew there were things that Lisa and Gail hoped to have finished, and as of Wednesday morning, some of them hadn't even been glazed yet.  While I didn't specifically need anything by Dec 24, I needed to get a few things glazed so that the kiln would be full.

I think Gail was at the studio the better part of the day - or at least most of the afternoon, and I came in after work in the afternoon.  We got it all glazed and loaded...

I can't help but think about this time last year.  On the morning of Dec 22, Allen was loading up the kiln and I could tell he didn't feel well.  I offered to finish it and he took me up on it.  I know this because we keep a firing log that includes the date, the type of fire (bisque or glaze), who loaded it, how long it took, and whatever notes seem appropriate (like forgot to close the peeps, FULL load, results weird, etc.)  That was the last time that Allen loaded his kiln.  Every load of bisque and glaze ware since then has been me.  It's weird still to think about things like that for me.  Clearly I still miss Allen a lot.  I hope that I always will.

Before I could get to the studio Friday, the unloading elf had the kiln unloaded.  For the most part, things seemed to behave appropriately.  The possible exception was the very bottom layer which might not have gotten hot enough.  I'll be doing an element test in the near future to determine if there is an issue or not.

A few weeks ago, I told you about making a replacement piece for a casserole dish that had cracked.

 And below there's the old one on the right and the new on on the left.  Of course, it's not a perfect match, but that's not too shabby, huh?

I also had a few good sized bowls that were finished.

I'm still trying to get our glaze that we call denim blue replaced.  For the second time in a row, I managed to get a glaze with a very similar name that is a very different color.  Our glaze, in the bucket on the left, is labeled Variegated Base Blue and what I've managed to buy twice now is a glaze called Variegated Blue.  I'll be digging in the file of glaze recipes to see if I can find the recipe.   

In other glaze mysteries, our bucket of Falls Creek Shino glaze had gotten all gritty. I sieved it yesterday to see if I could get the chunks to break down.  Didn't get them all dissolved, but maybe it helped some. There was a good bit of grit left in the sieve and a few larger bits.  I rinsed them off to see what they looked like.

What the heck?  It looks like glass, doesn't it?  I have no idea what is going on.