Hot Stuff! and patiently waiting

This was a long and hot firing. This kiln firing took from Thursday 2.00pm until Friday 1.00pm to finish its cycle. 
I can't wait to get it out as I have some chunky black tiles that Ive made for my windowsills in there, amongst other things.
Its sneaky peeks until then. These are photos taken during cooling but still too hot to touch its all at about 250c right now.

New Arrival!

I emptied the kiln on Monday with all the wedding favours in, so I really should be working, but I have a minor distraction!!

My Old Tyme Bulldog puppy

His name is Gus and he will be our canine companion from now on.
He is only 8 weeks old right now so its like having a newborn baby around. (All the extra washing, paper training, feeding ect….not to mention the stream of visitors we have had.)
He has had quite an impact on our lives already and we have all fallen for his charms.

Not sure when I will get time to thread all these ready for the weddings, I think I might take him in the workshop with me and put a hot water bottle under his blanket so I can thread them up tomorrow.

Broken Week

Last week was the Mother of all weeks!

So glad its over and a new week has begun. My week began with a car accident on the way home from  picking up my boys from school run. I was hit and shaken about, glass everywhere, the boys and I walked away with not a scratch though. 

So thats all I take away from this experience, the thought of what could have happened to us and just leave it at that.

The car however is wrecked!

My second part of this rubbish week is this irritation!

  I hate this! This is greenware, at the point of
loading into the kiln, one of my textured planters just cracked straight down its joining seem.I think it was just too cold to be putting things into the kiln, everything seemed so much more fragile.After a few more chips and snaps on this particular occasion I retreated to safer pursuits and a few choice words. 

So I waited for a warmer day, got the job done, loaded up the "Big Boy" with loads of
 wall pockets and bird feeders all safe and sound away from my cursed hands!  Fired the same night and next day. Its all gone ok too, nothing broken. 

I will post some pics next timexx

Winter Snow and warm Kiln Loads

This is what I woke up to on Tuesday!

View from my bedroom window.

and this is what I woke up to today!

So my week has been a series of checking for three school closures (fairly inconsistent there) so

I may have done school run to one school but not another, & the school where I work is on the coast 

so it didn't snow there until today, but we had a class trip to the National Portrait Gallery to London

which was cancelled on the day.

So, I fired my kiln and got going with some orders and a large commissioned order for a shop in Swansea. I fired the little kiln and as the temperature was -6 it cooled pretty quick so I could retrieve all the work within 24hrs, well that's never happened before! 

I have made a selection of lace embedded porcelain hearts, some 

vintage key hearts and the larger fairy hearts. 

All have been sent off to their new owner now.

Also warm from the kiln are these little porcelain disc pins, they are teeny tiny measuring just 2cm with a 15mm pin.