The kiln decides

Dona Rosa, our kiln, holds about seventy pieces when we pack her well. A full firing takes around eleven hours to climb, another day to cool, and uses roughly the same electricity as our flat does in a fortnight. Running her half empty costs nearly the same as running her full. So we wait until she's full.

Filling her takes time. I throw around twelve pieces on a good morning, but not every morning is good, and not every piece makes it past trimming. Some crack while drying. Some just look wrong the next day, and those go back into the reclaim bucket. Six weeks is how long it takes two people to make seventy things we're happy to sell.

Why we don't hire

We've thought about it. Every year, around November, when the Christmas orders come in, we think about it very seriously. But the moment someone else throws the cups, they become a different cup. Not worse, just different. People who buy from us are buying my hands and Tomás's glaze notebook, and we'd rather sell fewer of those than more of something else.

What a batch gives you

A batch is also a kind of honesty. Everything in it went through the same night in the same kiln. If the glaze ran hot, it ran hot for everyone. That's why we number them, stamp the number on every foot, and write up the kiln log for anyone who wants to read it.

It also means things sell out. We know that's annoying. If you missed something from Batch 14, there's a good chance it comes back in Batch 15 or 16, slightly different and probably better.

How to catch the next one

We send one email the week before each batch goes live. It has the date, the count and a photo from inside the kiln. Batch 15 fires on Thursday 12 November.