After a couple hours of loading the kiln last night, it’s always great to get to the end & brick up the door. One by one, brick by brick. Hiding the pots… knowing that we won’t see them again until after the soda-firing process works its “magic”… fingers crossed.

You gotta love the crunchy “glazed” patina on the bricks within the soda kiln. Sure, the bricks might be slowly disintegrating due to the corrosive soda mixture that we insert during the firing… but it sure does make some really cool bricks!!!

An empty soda kiln last night…
waiting to be packed with shelves, posts & POTS!!!
So much potential… waiting to be fulfilled…

As though I didn’t already have plenty still to glaze for tonight’s soda kiln loading… let’s just toss in a few MORE from this last minute bisque kiln full. More is more, right?!

Just under the wire!!!… making the weekend’s art fair deadline… CPLT… two kilns done… and now cooling! One kiln full of devils & pumpkins, the other kiln full of new bowls & platters! Looking forward to unloading them both for ART IN THE BARN this weekend… whew… just in time!!!

So now the soda kiln is empty once more… although I do still have some cleaning to do! Ugh. Gotta scrape the shelves, re-kiln wash them, clean the fire box & tidy up the kiln room. Ahhh… the glamorous side of soda-firing!

A beautiful firing in the new Lillstreet soda kiln! So excited with the colors, the glazes & flashing effects throughout the kiln. No dry spots. No gray “dolphin skin”. No glops from the soda. Just a lot of pretty pots… many of which will be going to ART IN THE GARDEN this weekend! Now I just need to clean ’em, price ’em & pack ’em!

The first sneak peek… pretty pleased so far…

Several hours later… and YES, it was a very long day on Saturday… the kiln fired nicely and ended in a blaze of glory! Always fun to see the flames sneaking out of whatever gaps they can find in the bricks. With the new kiln & bricked door, it all seemed pretty tight as there weren’t as many flames shooting out as usual. Now I’m just hoping that everything inside turns out great?! We’ll all find out soon… as I will be unloading the kiln later tonight!!!

Always exciting to get the firing started. After weeks & weeks of making the work, days of glazing & hours of loading… it feels great to have everything in the kiln starting off a long day of firing! Okay, so I didn’t get it started quite as early as I had hoped… but oh well…