dria 🇨🇦
@dria.bsky.social
Deb Richardson - Former Mozillian, current Red Hatter, originator of Linuxchix and the Mozilla Developer Network among other open sourcey shenanigans. Also pretty deeply into pottery, boardgaming, and reading.
Picture from the beginning of my beach walk this morning. I went out about an hour before low tide, walking 2km out and back to the furthest point you can see in this picture. More details about tides and how insane they are here in the alt text of the image.
October 11, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Picture from the beginning of my beach walk this morning. I went out about an hour before low tide, walking 2km out and back to the furthest point you can see in this picture. More details about tides and how insane they are here in the alt text of the image.
I grew up reading choose-your-own-adventure books and playing text-based adventure games on the computer. Decided to see if ChatGPT could replicate the experience. Not gonna lie...it's shockingly great.
September 27, 2025 at 3:07 AM
I grew up reading choose-your-own-adventure books and playing text-based adventure games on the computer. Decided to see if ChatGPT could replicate the experience. Not gonna lie...it's shockingly great.
Kiln finished at 1222c (I missed the top temp), but...still frickin' hot in there. This will have to cool 'til tomorrow afternoon before I can crack it and unload it.
September 20, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Kiln finished at 1222c (I missed the top temp), but...still frickin' hot in there. This will have to cool 'til tomorrow afternoon before I can crack it and unload it.
Firing the kiln again, this time to glaze some stuff. It's a light-ish load this time (30 things, when I can usually fit 50-60) just cuz I had some stuff ready to go and I was tired of looking at it. Will probably do a second glaze firing next weekend, including some proper glaze tests.
September 20, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Firing the kiln again, this time to glaze some stuff. It's a light-ish load this time (30 things, when I can usually fit 50-60) just cuz I had some stuff ready to go and I was tired of looking at it. Will probably do a second glaze firing next weekend, including some proper glaze tests.
Post a panel illustrating why you Love Comics
(In my case, it's a cover)
(In my case, it's a cover)
September 18, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Post a panel illustrating why you Love Comics
(In my case, it's a cover)
(In my case, it's a cover)
Kiln finished successfully. At top temperature for a bisque this was 998 Celcius...I just took the picture probably half an hour after it finished. I also threw some more bowls...these are the biggest I've attempted so far (those are 12" bats, and they started as 4 lb balls of clay). Not a bad day.
September 13, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Kiln finished successfully. At top temperature for a bisque this was 998 Celcius...I just took the picture probably half an hour after it finished. I also threw some more bowls...these are the biggest I've attempted so far (those are 12" bats, and they started as 4 lb balls of clay). Not a bad day.
Cleaned my studio and then immediately messed it up again throwing some new bowls. I love making bowls.
September 13, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Cleaned my studio and then immediately messed it up again throwing some new bowls. I love making bowls.
Firing the kiln today, which is always an exciting thing. This one's a bisque firing, which changes super delicate bone dry greenware to semi-vitrified, durable, and very porous bisqueware which will then be ready for glazing. If all goes well, glaze firing will be in the next week or so.
September 13, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Firing the kiln today, which is always an exciting thing. This one's a bisque firing, which changes super delicate bone dry greenware to semi-vitrified, durable, and very porous bisqueware which will then be ready for glazing. If all goes well, glaze firing will be in the next week or so.
Threw 10 jar bottoms today, wired off the bats and ready to be wrapped up for the night. Tomorrow I'll make lids.
August 31, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Threw 10 jar bottoms today, wired off the bats and ready to be wrapped up for the night. Tomorrow I'll make lids.
Autumn can't get here soon enough. I am a sweater-weather and soups & stews season kinda girl. This is brutal (also jfc we need rain so badly you guys).
August 7, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Autumn can't get here soon enough. I am a sweater-weather and soups & stews season kinda girl. This is brutal (also jfc we need rain so badly you guys).
If you see this, post a vampire.
July 16, 2025 at 11:01 PM
If you see this, post a vampire.
July 14, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Spent the day doing pottery nonsense. Fired a bisque kiln, made some coloured slips (and test tiles for those slips), made a first slab for a kohiki attempt, threw a bunch of mug forms that will be altered tomorrow. Love working with clay so much.
July 13, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Spent the day doing pottery nonsense. Fired a bisque kiln, made some coloured slips (and test tiles for those slips), made a first slab for a kohiki attempt, threw a bunch of mug forms that will be altered tomorrow. Love working with clay so much.
Current status: Cone 06 bisque firing to finish up some underglaze work and fire a couple of bigger pieces that didn't make it into the last kilnload. This should finish in a couple of hours and I'll unload tomorrow. Next up: A whole bunch of glazing, and hopefully a glaze firing next weekend.
May 10, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Current status: Cone 06 bisque firing to finish up some underglaze work and fire a couple of bigger pieces that didn't make it into the last kilnload. This should finish in a couple of hours and I'll unload tomorrow. Next up: A whole bunch of glazing, and hopefully a glaze firing next weekend.
These are some earlier tests...this is kinda what they'll end up looking like.
April 20, 2025 at 10:18 PM
These are some earlier tests...this is kinda what they'll end up looking like.
Playing with some pot decorating ideas. This is underglaze wash over wax resist brushwork. When glazed and fired these colours will be much darker and the brushwork will be bright white (there's food colouring in the wax, but that burns out entirely). I really enjoy this process.
April 20, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Playing with some pot decorating ideas. This is underglaze wash over wax resist brushwork. When glazed and fired these colours will be much darker and the brushwork will be bright white (there's food colouring in the wax, but that burns out entirely). I really enjoy this process.
We're doing a whole tritip on the grill tonight, so I made chimichurri sauce. Here are some process pix. This stuff is so insanely good on basically everything, but especially grilled meats (and on the inevitable steak & eggs tomorrow).
April 12, 2025 at 8:56 PM
We're doing a whole tritip on the grill tonight, so I made chimichurri sauce. Here are some process pix. This stuff is so insanely good on basically everything, but especially grilled meats (and on the inevitable steak & eggs tomorrow).
Today's radical self-care involves not beating myself up for not having the energy to decorate a bunch of pots. (I also have crippling choice paralysis, which isn't helping.)
April 12, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Today's radical self-care involves not beating myself up for not having the energy to decorate a bunch of pots. (I also have crippling choice paralysis, which isn't helping.)
So close (about an hour and a bit to go).
April 6, 2025 at 9:36 PM
So close (about an hour and a bit to go).
Progress. Probably just under 4 hours to go. As my first firing, this is a little nervewracking.
April 6, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Progress. Probably just under 4 hours to go. As my first firing, this is a little nervewracking.
Started the kiln a little later than intended because I had to do some last second troubleshooting to figure out why it wasn't starting (start code had been changed... I reset it). This will finish in 5 or 6 hours. Fun fun (I should really clean this.)
April 6, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Started the kiln a little later than intended because I had to do some last second troubleshooting to figure out why it wasn't starting (start code had been changed... I reset it). This will finish in 5 or 6 hours. Fun fun (I should really clean this.)
I feel like I'm on the verge of leveling up as a ceramist with my 1st home kiln firing tomorrow. Loaded the kiln this morning, but it's going to be a 9-11 hour bisque firing and I want to be awake when it finishes (just to make sure it shuts off when it's supposed to). Excited + nervous.
April 5, 2025 at 6:52 PM
I feel like I'm on the verge of leveling up as a ceramist with my 1st home kiln firing tomorrow. Loaded the kiln this morning, but it's going to be a 9-11 hour bisque firing and I want to be awake when it finishes (just to make sure it shuts off when it's supposed to). Excited + nervous.
Was making some stuff and had leftover scraps, so I decided to see if I can make pendants for jewelry. Ideally these will end up fired in a wood kiln sometime in May, but we'll see.
March 19, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Was making some stuff and had leftover scraps, so I decided to see if I can make pendants for jewelry. Ideally these will end up fired in a wood kiln sometime in May, but we'll see.