Small Things Around The House

Some days I think I may be a little insane.

It is usually when I am loading a glaze kiln and am not in the mood to do it...

The picture above is looking down three rods full of the small earring size pendants that I loaded yesterday. Every piece has to be suspended on these little hooks so that the entire piece  can be glazed without any sharp spots.

As I finished loading the kiln, I quick did a look over to make sure that nothing was touching, and one of these pieces dropped down to the bottom.

This meant that I had to get a small wire and try to fish that one small piece out without knocking any more off. I kept thinking - this is like playing that game "Operation" where you used small tweezers to get out the game pieces without touching the sides to avoid that annoying buzzing sound...

I did manage to get that single piece without much issue. But I can't help but to think there is a much better way to load and fire kilns - especially the smaller pieces. So my brain is in that mode to come up with something that I can load small pieces fast and easy (not quite so easy when you consider all the parameters: the rods/wire sag at a certain temp. Weight and space is also a factor). 

And of course, after a trying few hours of loading kilns - I've got my little helper around to get the house stuff done (although, she usually makes more of a mess than she cleans...).

It's these small things around the house that keep me going day to day...