Sunday Early Edition

Time to get a going!
I'm about two weeks out from the Haleiwa Art Festival and so far I have two bowls glazed.
Not a good thing.
I still need to make another twenty pieces, mainly vases and bottles, and I'm not sure I've got enough time.
It will all depend on whether or not the Big Kiln is good to go.
Which I have to work on today.
The Big Kiln was moved here from where it was about eight years ago and it hasn't been fired since.
I needed to hook up the 220v line and I wasn't really working with clay at the time.
I just never needed it.
So now that the pressure is on well, I need it.
The other problem with it was during the move, some things got shifted out of whack and that's what I need to address today:

As you can see, the lid isn't sitting well and there is some air between the lid and the top ring of the kiln.
Openings like this aren't good for it's better to have a good seal so the kiln can reach temperature faster.
I don't want any heat leaking out.
So I went and got the kiln repair tool:

The kiln is made up of high temperature soft brick, which is sort of like pumice, so it forms rather easily.
I just need to find the high spots and work them down to close that gap.
Hopefully I'll get it done and fire the Big Kiln up today.
A test firing.
Speaking of firings, my Blobs and Dots(BAD) design bows came out this morning.
While they aren't exactly good, they aren't exactly BAD:

I"m not really happy with the way they turned out, but I'm not really disappointed either.
I just need to work on the placement of the BADs a bit and I think they'll look okay.
Each bowl will be unique with no two designs being the same.
I'll do a couple more in red and I'm thinking of using black(cow pattern bowl), blue, orange and some lime green.
Or whatever other color I have handy.
If you know what I mean.
Okay, off I go!
Zen and the art of kiln repair.
Or something like that.