So, ignore the sloppy stack of boxes (and... other) behind it!  BUT... this is most of my part of the last kiln load, the refired stuff plus a few others I ran through before finishing the re-fire.

The big orangy brown pot in the corner is a custom order I've been stressing over, trying to get it out so the customer would get it by Thanksgiving, but, um, well... I sort of fell on my face at 5am Sunday after gluing on some cork to protect furniture under it.  Then I managed to sleep way past when the USPS truck takes off even though I had my alarms set to get up so I could finish packing.   It doesn't help the truck leaves the post office at 11 am, but I finished boxing it up Monday afternoon, then got it in the mail BEFORE the truck took off Tuesday.   Turns out USPS "Priority 2 day service" is predicting a SATURDAY delivery in southern California.  How does that work?  Even if you leave out Thursday (Happy TurkeyDay everyone!) it I would expect 2 day to mean FRIDAY...  Sigh, maybe I'll be surprised.  Monday shipping would still have meant delivery after the holiday.  But seeing as I managed to burn my hands pulling it out of the kiln at midnight Sunday, it is what it is.

Anyhow, the tall skinny orchid pot in the background of this one is another custom order, it's supposed to be 10 inches tall by 7 inches wide, in a nice matte blue.   The rest of the orchid pots are already listed on Etsy, and the kusamonos will go up soon.  The bowls will go up later this week, I'm not totally happy with the interior on one -  Rainy Day isn't as pretty as I was hoping for!  The trays may or may not go up (they're a clay I don't usually use so they don't go with most of the kusamonos), but I like the way the new forms I used to make them work so I'm going to do more.

Well, that was a first!  Apparently the power went out somewhere near the end of the firing cycle.  So, instead of firing to a good cone 5, it was maybe cone 3.  MAYBE.   I admit, I rely on the electronic kiln sitter probably more than I should, but I actually had cones in this load on the bottom shelf (coolest, usually) and the cone 4 should have been down, cone 5 touching, and cone 6 just starting to bend.  Instead, cone 4 was just starting to bend and the other two were still standing.  Top shelf of work looked ok when I peeked, color maybe a touch off on one or two of the matte glazes but everything fluxed.   A transparent purpley blue glaze I had on the bottom shelf was just a matte opaque purple, and a couple pots I had down there with the same matte glazes as on the top shelf were very off on color.

Sigh, so, I'm going to have to refire.  Everything.  Ah well, as kiln disasters go, this is pretty mild, at least  its fixable!  A few students with purely decorative stuff were anxious to get stuff home (one is leaving the area for months, silly snowbird!) so its probably a GOOD thing I have a small bisque load to run so I can have it done for a customer!  Mine will all be refired, I want the quality to be top notch, not 'half-assed'.  Biggest issue is I had testers in for a couple glazes I was firing for a customer to look at on a bonsai slab pot thats been sitting for MONTHS.... One of these days we'll get the color nailed down!

And of course I forgot to get pics of under-fired glazes before re-firing... 

Well, these are something new!  I'm trying them out to see how they go over.  They're sort of randomly shaped footed plates with terra sigillata and stain on the bottom and a glaze inside.  I'm thinking they'll work nicely as either small plates or something like  a soap dish or spoon rest, a jewelry dish or catchall, or maybe even a kokedama tray for Japanese moss ball plantings.  So far they're just sitting there, but I've only got a couple listed and I might need to play with tags.  I'm really liking the finish on the bottom of the blue and green one  on the top, but the green on this lower one is nice too!

I've also been listing a few more #kusamonos -  shocking, I know!

Another project I'm working on this week is a line sheet for wholesale.  Yikes, I haven't done wholesale this way before, but I think it'll be better than what I was doing before.  We'll see!  I've had a couple of people interested, one that was only wanting 6 to 12 items for her 'boutique', which since my typical order on the kusamonos is for 4 to 6 pieces isn't going to qualify for wholesale.  The latest one was from a fairly good size bonsai retailer, so it could be nice!

Sigh, too many ideas, not enough time!  :)