Before and after in the kiln

Getting in the mood to do glass work in the summer isn't the brightest idea in the world but you have to go with the muse when it hits. Yesterday, when it was over 95 outside, was the perfect day to fire the kiln to 1425 inside. I open the basement door (right next to the kiln) and use a fan to vent out any burn off so the basement was quite warm and muggy all day. It was good that I postponed dyeing until today because it was too hot to do anything down there yesterday. Today, after I clean the Airbnb unit, you can find me in the basement trying out a new gradient idea.

Here's the kiln before firing.

Here's the after. Soon I'll have a couple new quilt sun catchers in the shop and some new bubble plates after these go through a slump process. The blue piece in the middle was my first experiment with piping glass powder, like cake decorating. I'll be doing lots more of that.

​Notice the 2 pieces on the lower right. Both of those were stencil experiments. They didn't turn out quite like I expected....but I learned and that's what's important. The little square pieces will be magnets.

But not today. Today is dyeing day!