I am about to send up another glaze kiln. This one with mugs I have reglazed.  Over the past couple kilns I have struggled with glaze issues. My clear glaze arrived completely deflocculated which caused 2 of my interior glazes to crawl (mugs are thin and the walls can only absorb so much liquid.) Then when I reflocculated it with a saturated epsom salt solution it became too thick (this is not an exact science) and several of the mugs became cloudy.  And then I have a couple that just didn't fit in a kiln.  The kiln won't be full but but it will be close.  That's a a lot of unusable work.  Let's hope they turn out well.

And...I raised the prices of most of the mugs this week.  Not much...only a couple dollars.  Over the past couple years etsy has begun to take more and more of a cut with their myriad of fees.  It's close to 10% now, and if your shop does well enough ($10000 gross) they automatically use you for their advertising.  Then they take 15%.  I appreciate the platform, but my mug prices are low for the work involved .  Sgraffito is pretty time-intensive.  The other issue is materials.  When I began actually selling mugs with some regularity about 5 or 6 years ago my porcelain clay cost about $25/box.  This was higher than stoneware but only a little ($21vs$25).  Over time the gap has widened and in the last 18 months rather exploded.  Most of the stoneware clays are still in the $25-30 range.  My clay is now $49.  I love working with my porcelain and I love the way it feels both when I am throwing and after the glaze firing, so I don't want to switch clays, but my prices need to start reflecting the much higher cost of materials.  And then the postage cost of shipping glazes has also increased enormously over the past 2 years.  I use mostly commercial glazes for the bright interiors.  They are very consistent, and they are tested food safe so I don't need to worry about working with heavy metals. But they are expensive to ship.  While I can drive to pick up my clay, I need to ship my glazes.. My recent order cost $75 to ship.

And the flowers are from my garden. The zinnias did really well this year