Time for a "pottery" post..

It's starting to look like the Flat Creek Wool and Iris site! lol.

Pottery is something that I will be forever learning. When I was learning to throw on the wheel, I would study books, techniques, and thought "when I get this down, I'll be set!" Well, then I got to the part of glazing, and learned rather quickly that I still have a long way to go.

With that being said, I have been glazing this week and fired the kiln a couple of days ago. The kiln needs to slow cooly, so after waiting impatiently, it was ready to open this morning.

Since I've admitted I am still in the early stages of learning this art, I never know what to expect when the kiln is opened. The first 5 or so firings went ok - then the last firing, as pictured below was not so good. This particular glaze seemed promising on the test tiles that were ran the firing before -the test tiles were beautiful! However, this glaze proved to be a glaze that I don't want to revisit.
Just an example of what can go wrong. This glaze blistered, ran off the pots-fusing them to the kiln shelves.. and to make matters worse, it even caused a reaction with the other pots that weren't glazed with this glaze, ruining nearly everything in the kiln.

Fortunately, this firing went a little better than the last one.

Here's a few of the pots from the kiln today -


This is a new glaze that I really like -it reminds me a bit of the old crock style pottery.

Another variation of the same glaze
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And this is one that has been used here quite a bit - however it is not as green as usual.

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A few spindle tops - awaiting assembly now

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And the first completed sink.

These pieces are far from perfect, but I was thrilled to not have any pots that needed to be chiseled from the kiln shelf today!