New Hobby of the Month

 

Well, we DO go through a lot of hobbies around here.  For example, I’m absolutely DONE with fused glass, and am trying to sell off my stuff.  But this is a hobby that the whole family was interested in, so we have invested in the basics…woodturning!  Chris’ grandfather was a joiner, and Chris has gone through wood shop in school.  I wanted to go through wood shop when I was in school, but lost my nerve, because "girls don’t do wood shop."  I was already a butt of many school jokes and taking shop would have made me even less popular than I was (hard to believe, but true).  I hated high school.  But anyway, Alex was interested in it too.  So we bought a lathe, some pen blanks, some bowl blanks, chisels, finishing creams and sandpaper.  Here are some pictures of the practice things we’ve made.  Yes, we are practicing good shop safety.  Everyone wears a dust mask and goggles and nobody’s allowed to go out there without shoes on.

L-R, all polished:  Madrona spindle, bloodwood spindle, olivewood spindle, madrona spindle, madrona spindle, osage orange thingy.

 

L-R:  Same madrona spindle (but before it was polished), same bloodwood and olivewood spindles (polished).

 

L-R:  Polished madrona spindle, unpolished madrona spindle.  Madrona is a tree native to the Seattle area.  Cheap wood!

 

Polished osage orange thingy.  This was cut from a blank designated as a “bottle stopper” blank but I just wanted to play around with it because I like osage orange wood!

 

   And a picture of Alex (with Bickie in the distant background) just to cheer you up.

The new bridge is open!

 

You may recall that at the bottom of our hill, there was a dead end.  If it had been a working road, we could shave off, oh, ten minutes from Chris’ commute?  Not bad for a 20-minute commute (to become 10 minutes).  The road has finally been extended and Chris has been happily commuting quickly.  As an added bonus, Alex’s school is right up the hill on the other side of the bridge, so today we walked to school!  It was great except that a spider got on my coat (on the back) and Alex was afraid to brush it off me.  So we had a little drama there, which resulted in a slight delay.  Anyway, this is good, good news for those of us who need exercise.  I’ll report further this time next week (unless I forget).

 

On a sadder note, those short boots aren’t working out for me – the heel is high enough that my feet slide down the inside of the shoe and end up squishing my toes up against the front of the shoe.  Darn.  They’re up on Ebay now.

Fall is Officially Here

 

And do you know why?  Not because Alex is back in school.  Not because the rainy season has started…but because my NEW BOOTS have arrived!

 

Both from New Rock.  They are both pretty comfy.  The tall ones make a lot of clumping when I walk around (even when I try to walk quietly) and are a little tight across the instep, though previous experience with my purple skull New Rocks leads me to believe that will ease up in a few hours.  (I’m wearing them now.)  The shorter boots are insanely comfy right out of the box, except for the little bit of "getting used to high heels again" factor.  In US shoes I generally take a 7.5, but in New Rocks I take a 38, which usually translates as a US 8.  Just for your guidance.  Contact me if you’re interested in them or any other pair from New Rock.  Don’t worry, my prices are not as high as theirs.

Ocean Wave

 

I finished this shawl a couple of weeks ago but forgot to put up a pic.  Here it is.  This is a deliciously cozy shawl (well, it ought to be, with all that cashmere in it).  The problem was – I started it in order to use up the turquoise yarn, but I didn’t have enough leftovers to complete the shawl.  So I ordered more.  Now that the shawl is done, I have more leftovers.  I’ve started a pullover with it (colorblock) so I can use up a lot of the odd cashmere bits in my stash.  Mom is dyeing some of them for me.