Wood Turning Wednesday Edition

This will sadly not be a weekly feature on account of this wednesday being my last wood turning class. I had to say goodbye to a great group of fellow adult learners after twelve weeks of 3 hour classes each wednesday night. This is a picture of me, as I spent most wednesday evenings: covered in wood chips, nose full of sawdust, usually with a scarf to keep said wood chips and sawdust out of my bra, safety goggle on- creating a tell tale red line around my full time goggles, hair tied back to prevent from a tragic/recent accident, steel toed boots on-not required-but on because my dad taught me safety first plus they made me taller which made for better leverage on the lathe. I also wore plaid on this particular occasion and my favourite sitka spruce necklace from Granville Island as it seemed fitting.

I turned this little pine tree using various chisels on a wood turning tool called a lathe. I learned this new skill as a result of always admiring wood turned bowls but never being able to afford them. I am not able to attend school over here in Scotland much to my chagrin, so this evening class served as a substitute; teaching me important lessons I could not have learned while sat in a classroom.

Such lessons include but are not limited to as follows:

1-Sexism does in fact exist despite what you may have heard

2-Grown men will be part of a baking circle if pressured

3-The gruffest looking men had the softest centres

4-A skew chisel can break your heart

5-Women make great wood-turners

6-Working with your hands to create something from raw material is very rewarding

7-A motley crew of people from different backgrounds, countries, socio-economic groups and sexes can all be united by the vulnerability of learning something new

8-Most people don't know what wood turning is

9-Scottish wood workers don't stop for coffee...they stop for tea and are very serious about this!

10-There is a direct correlation between the strength of the Scottish accent and the dirtiness of the joke

Wood turning was something that was both terrifying and addictive to me. I got a sore neck and several new callouses and I love every minute of it! It is a craft I intend to continue: developing my skills and locally producing beautiful, functional wood products. I tried something new and it "turned" out I liked it! It is one more life skill I have in my arsenal and can't help but think the confidence I have gained as a result of this class might just be the incentive I need to try something else!

I wonder what?

erin x wood-turning