Pit firing our own pottery - attempt 1

We decided that it would be fun to try and pit fire our own pottery...last May.  This week, we finally got around to doing it.  It was really fun, and felt great to work on a project with both of the girls together.  We did a little research online just to get an idea of what we should do.  I am a blue/orange - and for those of you that know about the colors - my orange side really just wants to get to it and my blue side just wants my orange side to be happy.  So...here's what we did:








We chose the lower garden for our pit because the soil was soft and easy to dig in.  The only problem was that we have not been caring for that garden and it was completely overgrown.  Melody and I pulled out the weeds in one corner of the garden while Elgin went to find the garden tools to dig the hole.













The girls worked hard to dig the hole.  As is the usual for them, they picked a tool and set to work.  If you'll notice, Elgin has the big shovel and, as such, did most of the heavy and hard work.  Melody is using a little plastic shovel.  While Melody worked from start to finish digging, she did not move nearly as much earth as Elgin did.  When I was a kid....this arrangement would not have been satisfactory for my sister and me.  We would definitely have had some conversation and maybe even some swapping of tools during the job.  Not these two.

 Digging the hole didn't take long at all.  I did get in there and help them dig, too, but they really did do the bulk of the work.  I was more the project manager and camera person in this one.

 I wish that when we were done we would have measured the hole.  Our goal was to make it 1 square foot, but I'm pretty sure that we over shot it.

Once we started digging, many healthy, fat worms started wiggling their way to the surface to see what all the commotion was about. 

Here's one place where we sort of improvised.  The directions that we read about doing this indicated that we should put 6 inches of sawdust on the bottom of the hole.  We did not have sawdust so instead we used wood shavings.  We decided to just "see what happens".

 We placed some clay items into the pit and made sure to put wood chips into any openings.  These are not items that were made recently.  Last year we purchased clay and made a whole bunch of clay items.  Melody has been saving this green-ware all over the house.  It's in every room so we really can't wait to perfect this process and start firing some of her favorite pieces!  This time, she put in only the pieces that she wasn't concerned about losing.  Elgin wasn't able to find any posts or other clay items that she made.  Hopefully by the next attempt she will have found (or made) something that she can add!  After placing the clay items, we covered them with crumpled newspapers.

 Thankfully, we've had some windy days after which our yard has not been cleaned up.  We were able to find plenty of sticks to lay over the newspaper and used several small logs from this years wood that were too small to cord.

The girls took turns each lighting a side of the pit.  We thought  this would be the best way to start an even burn. 

Elgin had some difficulty with the lighter, and so Melody's side of the fire was burning pretty well by the time Elgin started lighting hers.  

 Finally!  The fire is burning.   We stood around and watched for a little while, made jokes about cooking s'mores.  Then we got down to the business of some much needed yard work.  We had to wait for the fire to burn out completely which took several hours.  Then we had to wait until the next day to open the pit to see what survived.  Unfortunately, as we weeded the rest of the lower garden, we heard at least two loud pops.  We were pretty sure that we were listening to the pots exploding.

While weeding the rest of the garden we remembered that we had planted potatoes on the other side!  We checked and sure enough the plants had died off, making it difficult to tell where to dig and indicating that it was indeed time to harvest!  It didn't really take that long to find our 'taters and to our surprise, there were a few very large ones!  The large one pictured here was about 3 times the size of a normal potato and weighed it at nearly 1.5 pounds!!

So on to the next day.  Bright and early, Melody and I were up.  Waiting.  At around 10, we just couldn't take it anymore and went in and woke Elgin up.  The three of us headed out to the pit, opened it and discovered many, many pieces of broken pots.  Melody spent a few minutes taking inventory of the pots she didn't put in to make sure that she didn't lose any of her "favorites".

It was not a surprising result, especially after hearing some of the pots pop the day before.  We've decided that we will definitely try this again.  One change that we'll make is to buy "high firing" clay as the instructions suggested.  I'm not sure what else we might change, it'll depend on how we feel and what resources we have available when the mood strikes to give it another try.

Has anyone else ever tried it?  What was your result?  We'd love to hear from you about your experience!