waking to panic

Kiln god please be kind.


Pray for us!

Drifting off to sleep, my mind floating peacefully (you know that slipping feeling right before you fall deeply asleep), then bolt upright with every part of my mind screaming SHIT!!!!!

I had loaded my kiln in the morning and given the very cold temperatures of late I had neglected to open the window in the smallish kiln building. I was going to go back to it later in the day but totally forgot. Matt being awoken by my panicky actions offered to go out to the kiln and vent the window for me. As I calculated how long it had been since I started the firing (picture sleepy girl visualizing the steps associated with programming an electric kiln). I realized that I had programmed my lovely kiln for a cone 6 firing. I was doing a bisque firing. Shit, shit, shit. I then ran over everything that I had in the kiln - let's see: 50 porcelain tea lights, a set of 12 lunch plates, 8 covered jars, umpteen coffee mugs. My mind spent the rest of the night trying to remember if I had read anything about (almost) vitrified clay being able to take a glaze. I did not sleep well.

I ignored my kiln entirely for about 3 days because it was just too depressing to think about much less unload.

Today I unloaded it and if I didn't think glaze was necessary I would be quite pleased with how everything looks. All of the porcelain, being the reliable stuff it is (Frost) totally vitrified. Would be fine except I want all of these tea lights to have decals on them so glaze is absolutely necessary. The Plainsman 340GS looks fabulous with all of the manganes specks, but it is too rough to remain unglazed.

Ok chin up, time to experiment...

For your own future reference, clay that has been fired to the cone it is intended to be fired to does not take glaze well. I held it in for a full count of slow 20, it ran like crazy and took FOREVER to dry. The jury is still out on whether it worked on the porcelain as it is still not dry and I dipped it several hours ago. I will let you know if the end result is ok once the firing is complete. My greatest fear now is that the glaze will all run down the sides of the pots and fuse to my shelves. But it shouldn't do this right?

I think I need to do something about my brain, it doesn't seem to be functioning up to speed lately. I need brain vitamins, or maybe more protein. Hmmmmm. I like the way that sounds, brain vitamins. I would buy that product.