Yesterday was my soda kiln firing day. A long day of playing with FIRE!!! So much “fun” firing with my fingers crossed as I was missing the top cone pack… guessing & hoping for the beast. The firing seemed fairly smooth all day, so I’m pretty pleased so far. Always exciting when the kiln gets to the top temperatures and you introduce the soda mixture into the fire boxes. Flames come shooting out every crack & crevice. So beautiful. So dangerous. Definitely not for the pyrophobics out there!!!

Okay, so here’s a story… I made my cone packs a few days ago so they would be nice & dry before they went into the kiln. Sure, I could have made them plain like everyone else… but MORE IS MORE. So you know I stamped mine just because I can.

Anyway… here’s the story!
So yesterday when I was firing the soda kiln, about three hours in I finally pulled out a brick to view the cone pack. Looked inside… and there was nothing there?! The star ornament behind it is still there… but no cones?! All I can think is that it either fell off the shelf or exploded?! Nothing I could do at that point… so I fired the kiln using just the bottom cone pack and the pyrometer. I can’t wait to open the kiln tomorrow to find out where that cone pack went?! And what it might have landed on… or in??? ugh… fingers crossed!

After about four hours, I finally had the soda kiln all bricked-up for the night. Looking forward to a couple hours of sleep before coming back to light it! A lot of work inside… and a LOT of work getting it all packed up.

After about three hours, I had the soda kiln fully packed with pots from top to bottom & front to back late Friday evening… err, guess it was really Saturday morning! Lots of “Tetris” stacking & packing to load everything in with proper spacing. Can’t wait to see these pots again… after the soda firing!

About ninety minutes in Friday night… and I had the back stack loaded up. Just stacking pots, bricks & shelves from bottom to top. Trying to keep some good air space between for the soda fumes to fly around in… and yet getting some pots all the way up into the arch as well.

A great combination… an empty soda kiln & my studio cart FULL of glazed & wadded pots. Late Friday night I loaded the kiln with a LOT of pots to be soda-fired on Saturday. My rolling cart has to travel from my second floor studio down to the first floor kiln room… on a very rickety freight elevator. So I always add some “seat belt” straps of masking tape to help keep pots in their place on the trip down!

Earlier on Friday night, this is what the soda kiln looked like. Empty, yet filled with possibilities. I got a late start loading… knowing it was going to be a LONG night!

We’re right on track… new Pirate Ghouls coming out soon!!!
Might be a little warm, but they’ll be there!

One last kiln for this weekend…

Two-thirds of the way through unloading… you get a second “reveal” when you take out the front two layers of shelves… and it reveals the third stack in the back. Again, excited that pots look well coated with soda, with some nice bright colors… and still no blasted grayness!!! Lots of fun new pots to share at my next couple art fairs!