iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Turkey dinner tomorrow, so making a soup tube tonight. These are so good you guys. www.mitchellssoupco.com/collections/...

A screenshot of the Mitchell's Soups product page for the Beef & Barley soup. The soup mix comes in a long sleeve that looks like a tube, thus "soup tube".

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The fun non-fic craft books I blew my Audible credits on. I love these kinds of books. Making stuff with your hands is so good you guys.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

A story in 3 parts. (I had like 8 audible credits accumulated and it's just a dumb subscription (fk amazon), so i blew them all on fun non-fic craft-related books and canceled my sub.) (I also finally canceled my xbox sub which i haven't used in like a year. so dumb.)

three email: "your new credit is here" (oh ...good). "thanks, your order is complete" (after i used all my outstanding credits). "you've cancelled your membership" (yeah i did). also fk amazon

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Kiln firing went very well. This one piece from it -- a little espresso mug I made for a friend. Crystalline matte glaze on the outside, rich blue glossy on the inside. One of 54 pieces I fired. There were some flaws and one failure, but mostly good. I am so thrilled. Onwards.

A photograph of my hand holding a small mug (espresso cup, really) with a light grey mottled matte glaze with small white crystals on the outside, and a nice blue glossy glaze on the inside. It's a little one-finger mug, just over 2.75" tall. I love it :D

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Fav local pizza place is like minimum $40-45 now, so let's see how this goes.

Photograph of 2 packets of pizza yeast, one of the front, one of the recipe on the back.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Camping for a week...selecting books. This is the long list. Comics are locked, the rest are in flux. (Katabasis is locked, really, who am I kidding?)

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I've been at Red Hat for 5 years. I had the option of getting a celebratory plastic puck 🙄 or they'd send the dollar equivalent to a charity that plants trees in places that need trees. I opted for the trees. These are my trees! (This is legit cool and I love it.)

A screenshot of info cards for 2 trees in Tanzania, including coordinates and photographs. I have named my trees Skogen and Falkenna. They are very small right now. One is a Chinese Lantern shrub and the other is an Acacia tree. This is the best.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I have infinite books to read, and I really need to start setting personal deadlines. These came in today and the deadline is whenever the TV series starts. (I have read them before, but that was like 25 years ago.)

A photograph of 3 paperback copies of William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, including Neuromancers, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Best Star Trek crew; wrong answers only.

It's a photograph of the Rocinante crew from the Expanse TV series, walking side by side down a very Star Trek-like corridor.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Every once in a while I'll be on Glazy.org and I'll see a glaze with lovely photos, but then I'll scroll down to check the chemistry and find something like this. This...is bad. This is a terrible, terrible glaze for functional ware. These numbers should be as close to 0.3:0.7 as possible. Ugh.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Picked up some comics today, and also some game nerd stuff (Terraforming Mars: The Dice Game is very, very good -- we prefer it to the original on a bunch of levels).

A photograph of the Terraforming Mars: The Dice Game "Missions" expansion box.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

My recent reads. I tend to read in chunks.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I am really, really enjoying the Murderbot Diaries.

Screenshot of two emails in my inbox -- one from Goodreads at 11:27am titled "You finished System Collapse (Murderbot Diaries #7). What's next?" and one from Amazon at 11:28am titled "Amazon.ca order of Platform Decay (Murderbot Diaries Book 8). So. Yeah. They're so good.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Finished the test tiles before bed. These will dry over the next day or two and then I'll do a bisque firing.

Photograph of two open shelves in my pottery studio. On them are some drywall boards with taped edges. On the boards there are somewhere between 175-200 small clay tiles. In cross-section they're shaped like a narrow upside-down "T" so they can stand up on their own.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I did finally get the float to work -- had to reformulate it to work with my materials, but it's so so nice.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Ok, actually did the thing i said i was going to do. Threw a bunch of bottomless cylinders to practice that skill and, as a bonus, make a buttload of test tiles for future glaze experiments. 14 pictured, and did 6 more after this. That's a full bag of clay and should make ~200 tiles. I am muddy.

A photograph of two open shelves in my pottery studio. There are 7 rings of clay on each that I will cut into slices. the bottoms are wider than the walls so they won't tip over in the kiln.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Scored 2 Colson Whitehead hardcovers for $8 each at a booksale today.

A photograph of two Colson Whitehead hardcover books -- Harlem Shuffle, and Crook Manifesto. What a deal.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Confirming the value of newsletters, I preordered 2 books because of @blackwells.bsky.social 's latest. Somehow Blackwells is in the UK but offers free shipping to Canada? I've ordered a bunch of stuff from them and would love to visit someday. (It's a very old bookshop.)

Screencap of a book called "The Mulai" which is some kinda weird scifi sort of thing that sounds amazing.

Screencap of a book called "Totem: The Untold Story of Sculpture" which is a nonfiction book exploring the history of sculpture through human history. Also sounds amazing.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Glaze testing went very well. I now have recipes for satin, glossy, float, chrome-tin red, and teadust glazes. This includes a very durable clear and a lovely array of both satin and glossy colours. I am so happy. A few select tiles here, and the full set is here photos.app.goo.gl/MFVrUd5M4U1c...

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Who's your favourite movie dad? Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine in Logan.

Screencap from the movie Logan. Hugh Jackman (Logan) is driving a truck stolen by Daphne Keen (Laura).

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Narrowing down my camping book selection. This is always so hard. I've read Calculation of Vol 1 already, but kinda want to read it again before Vol 2, so those are def on the list (Vol 1 is *so* great). Station X is non-fic about Bletchley Park, which I super want to read. Ugh. Need more vacation.

A photograph of a stack of 7 books. Included: Strange Buildings by Uketsu, Mrs. Shim is a Killer by Kang Jiyoung, Station X by Michael Smith, On the Calculation of Volume (vols 1 and 2) by Balle, Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood, and Flashlight by Susan Choi.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Did a bisque firing in the kiln overnight and unloaded this afternoon. Lookit all my lil bowls! Those are going to be used for glaze testing. Also little plates, some random red clay things for testing bisque slips (exciting!), and some butter keepers.

A photograph of a tabletop from above. The table has a bunch of mostly white (3 red) pottery pieces on it, including 40-odd little bowls, 8 small plates, 3 weird vase things (the red clay), and some butter keepers (basically 2 part jars for storing butter on the countertop).

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Gonna re-read these just to make myself feel better about my life (I write and edit for a living).

A photograph of a stack of 3 books: On Writing Well, Everybody Writes, and How to Write

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Tiles made, kiln loaded and firing. Fingers crossed 🫠

A photograph of 20 test tiles, ranging in colour from white thru pale green/blue, to rust red. One has some stripes on it, where I'm testing an iron wash over a satin matte glaze.

A photograph of the inside of my kiln with the 20 tiles arranged in a concentric circles. In the middle is a cone pack, which is how you verify heatwork in a ceramic firing.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Here's the Stull's map of the glazes. Pretty cool stuff. Hopefully some of them work? (They should, but glazes are bonkers in terms of the number of variables involved.) I'm also beat.

Screen shot of a Stull's map, on which are 18 different points where my glazes fall upon it. Many overlap, and that's on purpose -- I adjusted various recipes with different ingredients so that happened. Fun stuff.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Fired the kiln overnight, but it's still too hot to unload. Trimmed the butter bells (pic 1), and made some little plates (pic 2). Yay! I have so much stuff to glaze, good lord. Must get some glazes nailed down, which I'll work on this week.

A photograph of trimmed butterbell parts. Tops and bottoms for 6 in total. These are things I made yesterday, so are not quite dry.

A photograph of 8 little plates, ranging from 5 to 6 inches in diameter. I just made these so they're still very wet and will need to dry overnight before I can trim them.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Messed up my pristinely clean wheel by attempting some butter bells. Learned a ton, got to use my calipers for the first time, and can prooobably save them all with some judicious trimming (some of the inner parts are taller than the outer parts because i had no idea how much clay to use at first).

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Photographic evidence that I do, in fact, occasionally clean my wheel. Much easier when the weather's nice (ie: not winter) because I can take the splash pan, tools, buckets, etc. outside and just hose it all down. Bisque firing tonight or tomorrow, then back into glaze-test town for a while. #pots

A photo of my pottery wheel, all sparkling clean. There's a wooden shelf on it that has some water buckets and tools on it, and a mirror on the wall behind (the mirror makes it easier to see what I'm doing sometimes).

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Not pictured, the ludicrous number of Kindle books I've amassed over the years, and the growing collection of Audible books. (I don't love Amazon, but this is an investment I can't walk away from at this point.) (That's how they getcha.)

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Posting a random shelfie. I've read many of these, but most are my TBR. I need more time to read, y'all.

A photograph of one of 4 bookshelves in our living room. This one is closest to my reading chair. I want to read all of these things (I've read several, but will happily reread most.)

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Skill building kind of pottery day. Threw 2 very thick bowls that will become bisque molds, then finally tried throwing off the hump (which is basically putting a big ol hunk of clay on the wheel and using just the very top section to make little things). Went middlingly well. Learned a ton.

A photograph of a table in my pottery studio. On the table are two large-ish very thick-walled bowls. Beside those are 13 small bowls.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Our local bakery is just insanely great. I went early and managed to get the last bag of the japenese milk bread and i'm so excited about it.

A photo of 3 loaves of bread -- one japanese milk bread (buns really), one white bread, and one sourdough. This stuff is so good, and no more expensive than the normal stuff from the grocery store.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

In other news, we finally have some actual spring weather, so the urge to clean everything and tidy up the gardens is strong. (Comic panel from Hyperbole and a Half readingatrecess.com/tag/clean-al...)

A comic panel of a crazed woman holding a broom, yelling "CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!" It is from the ever delightful hyperbole and a half https://readingatrecess.com/tag/clean-all-the-things/

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Kiln's open! Here's before and after pix. Super fun. Lots of good stuff, a couple of failures (none of my floats actually floated, alas), but I have some solid recipes to use and build on from here. FUN! If there's interest I'll post close ups of some later, so let me know if you'd like to see. 🪴

A photo of the inside of my kiln showing glaze test tiles before firing -- they are all various shades of whites, greys, and light browns. Glazes look pretty boring at this point. :)

A photo of the inside of my kiln showing glaze test tiles AFTER firing -- they run a range of colours from white through black, including various turquoise, greens, blues, some oranges and greys. They are mostly a lovely glossy finish, and a couple satin matte.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Finished firing 4 hours ago and still waaaaaay too hot to open. Should be able to open after coffee in the morning.

A photo of the computer controller on my kiln, current temperature is 502c, with a recorded fire time of 6h5m.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Ok, got up a little later than planned, but hey it's Sunday! Kiln loaded and firing, started just after 7:30am so it should finish around 2pm. Fast cone 6 firing, so it will go up to 1222c over 6.5 hours then shut off and cool naturally. Should be cool enough to unload tomorrow morning.

A photo of the inside of a kiln. There are 48 various test tiles on a series of racks, and 16 self-standing tiles through the centre. In the very middle is a square tile with some pastel-coloured glaze cones on it. These are used to verify the final firing temperature because they melt based on the amount of heat work (which is basically temperature over time).

A photo of the computer panel of my kiln which indicates that I have just started a fast cone 6 ceramic glaze firing. Current temperature is 20c and fire time is 0:00.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Batched some glaze tests today -- 18 variants, 8 recipes, a few colour experiments. 2 will be used for a line blend to test various amounts of titanium dioxide. All are testing recipes I had to reformulate because my original kaolin source is no longer available. Next I have to make test tiles.

A photograph of 18 small deli containers half full of different glazes, ranging in colour from white thru turquoise to rust brown. Each container has a label made of green masking tape with various glaze names written on it by hand in black marker.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

The coolest thing about pottery is that it's one of our oldest technologies, and the artefacts often stick around for a long, long time. smarthistory.org/octopus-vase/

A photograph of a large ceramic vase from 1500 BCE decorated with an almost cartoonish octopus. I love it. It's from Palaikastro, and currently in the Museum of Heraklion. Photo by Wolfgan Sauber.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Unloaded the kiln. Bisque firing went perfectly (I love my kiln). Now I have even *more* stuff to glaze. Oops.

A photograph of my pottery workbench, on which are arranged all of the things I just unloaded from the kiln. These are mostly white clay, with a few red clay items. There are 4 large mugs, a couple of vases, a bowl, a few plant pots, and a bunch of variously-sized mugs. None are glazed...that's the next step.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Recalculating glaze recipes and planning my next batch of tests. I have 6 recipes that I'm going to test 20 or so ways, including a couple of line blends and a few new colour experiments. These *should* be good, but since I had to sub in a new kaolin source, gotta test, test, test!

A screen cap of a Stull chart, on which are mapped 8 different glaze recipes. It's a grid with some swoops of colours indicating various end-results for the glazes including unfused, matte, semi-matte, bright (gloss), and underfired. My glazes all fall in the mid "bright" range except for one that's on the border of semi-matte and matte.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Omg i went to the library today. It's the best.

A photograph of 4 old library books, all about the history of pottery in Canada and Provence.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Another thing about ceramics is that the battery industry is making some glaze materials just ludicrously expensive. I don't even bother looking at glaze recipes that involve lithium. Ffs.

A screenshot of part of my glaze materials order, which is 250g of cobalt carbonate that costs $67.40. Bonkers.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Finally got around to finishing this up.

A screen cap of a certificate showing that I have successfully completed the Ceramic Materials Workshop "Advancing Glazes" course, Jan 2026 edition.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I really really need to practice making handles, so threw a dozen mugs today. Consistency is still not there, but different shapes will want different handles, so that's a fun added challenge. These were all 1 lb balls of clay, and I've made some progress with my throwing larger forms. Yay!

a picture of 12 freshly-thrown mug forms (basically cups without handles), still on the bats

a picture of 12 freshly-thrown mug forms (basically cups without handles), still on the bats - a slightly different angle

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

Since I've been doing glaze chemistry courses since October, I haven't had a lot of time to actually throw clay. Decided to fix that today. Threw a whole bag (22lbs) in 2lb chunks, practicing throwing taller / bigger. Pretty happy with the results (some are better than others). Learned a lot.

A photograph of 10 freshly thrown clay pots, ranging in size and shape as I was practicing throwing taller / bigger today.

A photograph of 10 freshly thrown clay pots, ranging in size and shape as I was practicing throwing taller / bigger today. A slightly different angle.

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dria 🇨🇦 @dria.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

My matte black glazes were...not best. BUT learned a lot, found some interesting results, and I am better equipped for the next round. (Iron oxide is a pain in the butt, y'all.)

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