Wood Turning 101

The lathe! Set up with bowl #1 (attached to left side)

Instructor Warren giving some useful tips to Maia!

This is what I look like when I'm turning! A nice action shot, check out those flying wood chips.

The first finished bowls!!!

Pretty pumped about wood turning..we were completely covered in wood shavings and chips for the whole week! Also note the really cool head gear.

Some pens!

You start off with pen blanks - little blocks of wood or resin that been drilled through the center, and a small metal tube has been glued to the inside of the blank

The blanks get pushed onto a mandrel, and get squeezed between the head and tail stock of the mini lathe

This is what it looks like when I am turning a pen! Lathe is spinning, and I used various turning tools to shape the wood into whateeever I want!

A turned pen before it is taken off the lathe..this one was made out of palm.

The first three that I made!! Hurray!

Last week I took a mini-lathe class, mostly concentrating on pen turning. It was pretty fun, and you feel kind of special writing with a hand made wood pen! The second half of the week I learned to turn bowls on a normal sized lathe..which was way messier and way more fun! I'll get pics soon!

lilly things

Some little books I made for fun!! The first one is just a simple stab bound notebook, and the second two are small, coptic stitch books made out of craft paper and newspaper.

More Shibori

Here are some pics of the final shibori piece! The first two are process photos of what the fabric looked like before I dyed it. I measured out where I wanted the dye to be resisted, and then wrapped beans tightly in the fabric to get a circle shape. The final result was two layers of fabric, and I drilled and hung a layer of beans in between the fabric. If you stand directly in front, all the circles line up with the beans. Kind of silly, but it was fun!

Shibori!

So last week I finished my first class, a 3D Shibori class taught by Jozef Bajus. The basic idea is to tie/bind/clamp fabric in specific patterns or designs so that when they are immersion dyed, the string or clamps or whatever will act as resists. Fancy tie-dye! Here are a few picture of what the fabric looks like before it is dyed..

And what some of the fabric looked like after!! During second half of the class, after learning all the basic techniques, we were given an assignment to create some type of 3-dimensional form to hang in an outdoor space. Stay tuned for pics!