Sunflower Seed Beads

These beads have had a black underglaze put on them and I wiped most of it off so the dark color would sink into the recesses.  I made five sizes, small, medium, and large.  These range from about 13 mm to 24 mm from hole to hole.

I am planning on firing these nine different colors. 

I have been calling this style "Harvest" but when I look at the unfinished beads I can't help but think they look like a bunch of sunflower seeds.

These are the nine colors I will end up with when these are all fired. (see last photo).

What will I be doing with the rest of my day?

That's easy .... glazing glazing glazing. And tomorrow I'll be firing firing firing.  It's going to take a couple of firings, though because I will have to use my smaller kiln.

In other news, my large kiln is still out of commission. I'm waiting on a part to come in the mail.  I had thought it was the coils, but as I was removing them from the kiln, I saw the 'infinite switch' had a burnout.

Then I had a flash of memory. I did this same thing last year with another infinite switch issue.  I had perfectly good coils then, too.  My kiln has two infinite switches. One for the bottom and one for the top. Last year it was the bottom one that burnt out. This year the top burnt out. But I didn't look to make sure before pulling the coils out and by the time I realized it wasn't a coil problem it was too late.

I suppose I could have stuck those coils back in their slots but I probably would have ended up ruining the firebrick.

I am also in need of some slip on connectors in order to connect the switch to the wires, but the place I ordered the switch from was out .... and I think I may have some extra in my stash somewhere around here, but I'm not certain.  I wonder if hardware stores carry those slip on connectors?  If not and if I don't have any, then I'll check the ceramic stores around here and if they don't have any, I suppose I will have to wait the three weeks the online store said it would be before they would be back in stock.