Today was a busy day, we started out with yet another trip to Harrisburg. It seems I've made that trip every week and sometimes twice a week for a month now! The good news is I now have all the clay I need to create all the pots I need over the next 2 months. The bad news is I really don't have enough room in the studio for it all. BUT I will throw about 4-5 boxes over the next 2 days doing all the plates and platters that are on my..(dare I say it?) Plate.
So I got all of these pieces out of the kiln today and I am only happy with about 4 or 5. Not that the others are bad, but I am having some trouble getting my ash glaze to work on the stoneware. It seems to work best on the porcelain. It's leaving small blisters on all the stoneware pieces. Fortunately they are all on the outside so while I am not pleased and find the blisters ugly, they are still salable to those who don't mind. I'll let them go for about 1/4 to 1/2 off. Probably save them for a discount table at our next home studio sale, which is scheduled for Nov 14 and 15th.
After dealing with the unloading of the kiln and grousing a while about the glaze I got down to work on the hundreds of mugs I need to throw. I decided to start with 40, tomorrow I'll do another 40 and do some plates and oil candles too. I'll trim and handle these as they need it, but I am hoping to keep them under plastic for a while so I can take my time. pulling 40 to 80 handles at a time becomes somewhat demoralizing for me. I swear if I had to do it all the time I would go crazy. Some people I know hate doing handles so much they refuse to make anything that requires handles. I think taking that attitude might put me out of business. People love my mugs and love my handles. And I have to say..I pull a pretty mean handle.
