Carol1411
Apprentice Member
First, thanks to Jim for sticking with me in helping me to post. I'm Carol. I live in New Jersey, USA. I've been turning almost 2 years. While most people would be off to bigger and better turnings after this length of time, I'm still enjoying turning pens and other small objects. I know probably less than a thimble full of knowledge, but I keep plugging away. I blew out 3 pens today, so my frustration level made me hang it up. My husband and I belong to a turning group and we do craft shows maybe a half dozen times per year. I guess one of our biggest sellers is bullet pens. Another good seller, (even though quantity is small) is wine bottle stoppers, made from the actual grapevine from a vineyard. That was my husband's idea and he deals with them. Twisted vine is gorgeous to me. There's a lot of failure in making the vine into stoppers, because you have to find an area that is conducent to standing up as a bottle stopper. I love "ugly". I think that's why one of my favorite woods would be spalted. The more grody, the better. Though spalted is one of my blow ups today. I've seen this idea other places, but didn't steal the idea, as I came up with it by myself. I take a drumstick and use the part of the stick with the business end of the stick. I turn a pen from it, leaving the rounded nub and don't add a clip to it. Well, I hope to find some time to poke around here and hope I learn a lot. Thank you.