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 US Picks 