Tuesday 21 January 2014

30 days and counting......

Preparations for the Thame Fair are continuing apace, however I do question my ability to manage my time effectively.

For example, I've spent a total of 12 hours yesterday and today doing a marathon soft cleaning session.  I had originally planned to complete it over the course of 5 days this week, one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon, doing creative stuff in between.  However it's such a soul-destroying task that once I got going I couldn't face the thought of spreading it out and ploughed on through.

This is A Good Thing in that the whole batch is now done and loaded into the kiln and I still have three full working days in which to do creative stuff.  However, it is also A Bad Thing as my hands have turned into desiccated witchy husks, I'm wracked with muscle and joint pain and I have a splitting headache.

I've blogged about soft-cleaning before.  It's absolutely one of the most boring things on the planet riveting, so if you're interested..... How It's Made - Soft Cleaning 

The Best Thing about soft-cleaning is when it's over. 

I've just finished loading it all into the kiln, another back breaking task as each tiny piece has to be individually placed onto a bed of kiln sand, inside my top-loading kiln.   However this is the gratifying sight on both shelves when it's all done.....







I'll do the bisque firing tomorrow so at least there will be the added bonus of the house being toasty warm for the duration.

It looks as though, for the moment, my work here is done......  *sits back with a sense of hard won satisfaction....




 *sigh*

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

Until I started reading your posts I had no idea what went into making your dolls. It's fascinating though I can see also back breaking.

I imagine most artisans do things that others might think "I couldn't bear to do that". I questioned my sanity recently while spending days making 90 identical LEDs for a club project. It's great satisfaction in the end though to see a job well done and the pleasure from customers.
The things we do to provide collectors with little treasures eh!

rosanna said...

Back breaking for sure!
Any time I read your psots about dolls making I am incredibly happy that wonderful artisans like you are around. Sigh of relief...
But the red banner is terrible!
May I suggest you a truly agreable book?
"The wee book of Calvin" by Bill Duncan.
It's full of Scottish humour and proverbs as heart warming as the one you posted ;o)
good night and try to have a bit of fun tomorrow
Rosanna