We got the dog seat into the kiln today. It took THREE of us. Rodger and I lifted it onto the trolley with the brown paper on top, by sliding it round on its own board to get our hands underneath. Allie held the board steady to stop it twisting round with it. Once on the trolley it was fairly straight forward to slide it into the kiln with the sand on the kiln shelf, one at either side and Allie pushing from behind. It was a bit tight with the door only just closing, but I prefer to say a perfect fit. In fact taking shrinkage into account it was precision mathematics actually. The dog looked a bit worried about his fate, but as long as I remembered to vent all the sections it should be alright. I just hope that where the seat overhangs his head it doesn't warp. Maybe I should have built in another support for the firing?
But what does SHE care?I had the most lovely letter of appreciation from someone who bought some pieces at 'Earth and Fire'. It is rare to receive such a thing. I remember reading in Mary Wondrauch's book on slipware how she had a thin folder for them which she treasured. I shall treasure this one.
Unfortunately I also had a worrying correspondence from someone who had bought a mug which she described as 'sweating'on the base when she used it for tea. This was most alarming as I have used, and others have used, my mugs happily for years without any problems. I have pretty confidently narrowed it down to a small batch which was thrown from my red body but had traces of the Valentines black in it from the previous pug. I only noticed this when they were bisc fired and much darker. I shall be careful another time if I have used the pugmill for a different clay first, but if anyone out there has this problem let me know.
