limiting choices

I unloaded the kiln today and thought I'd show a few pictures from that firing, also a couple of things I'm working on currently.  I tried to control myself with the glazes in this firing.  And the only testing I did was a little experimenting with layering my existing glazes.  I liked it.  Usually I experience a certain amount of anxiety deciding on individual treatments for pots.  Limiting my choices made things so much easier.         

I'm really pleased with these pumpkins.  If  I had started on these earlier I would have made more.  I'm glad I stopped when I did, though, since they took forever to dry.  I suppose being a closed form with just a little hole in the bottom had a lot to do with that.  The really dark pumpkin is the plum glaze I tested recently.  All the others are in the same family- Grace's Base with varying degrees of iron oxide, rutile and/or yellow ochre added. 
  

A couple of acorn finials glazed in temmoku.  I brushed on some white glaze first- too much, I think, on the right one.  I like the gold color formed from overlapping these glazes but this might be bordering on garish. 

More temmoku.  I had a request to make a french butter crock in this glaze with a bird drawn into the lid.  Maybe you can see it on the third crock from the left if you click this picture.  I also made a few without the bird, playing around with brushing the white glaze under the temmoku or using a little oribe over it. 

Normally I would not have settled for plain white, but the picture of these candle holders with red Christmas candles popped into my head as I was contemplating glazes.  Wouldn't that make a nice grouping?  If someone bought all three, that is.

Rolled these out yesterday.  This is not my usual clay.  It has a rich dark color which cannot be appreciated because of the fluorescent lighting in this picture.  The finished plaque on the left is how these should end up looking.  If I'm going to make more of these I'll have to hurry.  The dogwood leaves are turning and soon they will be too brittle to press into the clay.

I'm about to put the knobs on these cookie stamps.  The bottom shapes are the bisque fired forms I use to make these.  Thought I'd get stocked up for Christmas.  Making these doesn't exactly push my creative button anymore, but people tell me they enjoy using them.  Plus, the cookies are really good.