I always say that opening a kiln is a little like Christmas morning. You don't know if you're going to get that much coveted red bike with the sparkly banana seat and the silver bell, orrrrrrr.... socks. 

Today was definitely a sock day. Wool socks. Grey. And scratchy, too.

I've been trying to hurry my drying as things are so damp here that my work isn't drying. This was my first kiln load of serious work. I put it on a preheat cycle for 18 hours, but some work still exploded from the steam build up. I lost two major pieces and took out one of Lisa's beautiful teapots in the shrapnel fallout.

Luckily,  the two shelves of work below it came out intact. I am particularly pleased with the wire wing I made as a test from steel wire, then fired, pictured here on a scrap of the black clay, which does indeed fire black, for all of you out there who were wondering.  

So maybe it wasn't an ALL sock day.