Crafts

I’m always asking clayers to send me links to what they’re up to, their shops, their blogs and Shuli took me up on it. Her Etsy shop is a bright and cheery place. The fish, above, is just one of many fun pieces to check out. Her About page talks about her inspiration – the rich colours of the …

Refinishing a teak boat platform, filled all cracks, chips, dents, and missing chunks with quickwood epoxy, sanded with belt sanded with 50g and 80g, sanded with DA 80g, 100g, 120g, 150g and finished sanding by hand with 150g. 2 coats of isolante, scuffed with 320g, 9 coats of polyester sealer, sanded too 400g and 4 coats or high gloss polyurethane. Wet sanded with 1500g and buffed with meguires med compound then fine! Looks wet! Customer happy!

It is almost time to kick off another series. Most of my novels have been written right here on the old blahg, but this one was different. I decided to work on it when I needed breaks from other projects. It is a YA novel about a girl named Abby and her best friend, Stevie. Abby’s adopted and Stevie’s an orphan, but the troubles of their lives doesn’t seem so bad when they’re together. What they don’t know is that fate has plans for them. Another realm awaits, one with many mysteries and adventures, but only a few are allowed through the secret doors. They are the chosen, but even when picked, must survive The Challenge, before they are truly accepted. I have to admit, I’m a fan of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, and it is this love that made me want to write a series in this vein. Creating a world is fantastic, and I’ve truly enjoyed putting the first building blocks into place. It has been a joy to watch the personalities of the characters evolve and I’m already working on book two. Erin Feldman has done her editing and I’ve just finished a final read through. As I work on getting it ready to publish, I’d love to get some volunteers to give it a read. I would send anyone who is interested either a PDF or .mobi file (for Kindle). I’m hoping that the beta readers might be willing to put up their review after the book is launched. It is important to get reviews up quickly to build momentum. If you’re still not convinced, let me mention one more thing. There are two giant guinea pigs in the story and one of them talks. Everybody loves a guinea pig! So, if you’re interested, please send me an email at EcocandleRiel@gmail.com, and put Beta Reader in the subject line.

It seems a few friends were amused by the fact that I bought a JEEP… This was posted within hours.. Funny buggers…

So what do you do when you move across country and don't know anyone in town? The fastest way to meet people is to join your local quilt guild. Fortunately there's a fairly large one in Cheyenne, the Cheyenne Heritage Quilters with over a 100 members. I've been going to meetings since February and have to say that everyone has been very welcoming. I'm still getting a feel for the area but it's been nice to have somewhere to go and see familiar faces. Eventually I'll even start to learn people's names but for right now it's enough to share my love of fabrics. This past Monday night we had a 'make it take it' on five different 3-D fabric flowers which was very entertaining. A few meetings ago we had a member show all of her life's work of quilts ... she was 90 years old and had a lot of quilts and photographs of ones that she made over the years. That was an inspirational program. She was quite a lovely lady. In addition to the guild in Cheyenne I discovered that there's a Modern Quilt Guild in Fort Collins, CO which is only a 45 minute drive away. So far I've only been to two of their meetings but it's very active. The members are a bit younger than I am which is a nice change of pace. We meet in an adorable fabric store called Mama Said Sew which carries an eclectic mix of modern fabrics as well as kona solids, yay! (For my last quilt project I couldn't find a solid white cotton in either of the two quilt shops here in Cheyenne. I'm not sure why they didn't carry some solids at all.) One of the members designed a fantastic triple zip pouch. As soon as I make one I'll show it to you and give you the info on where you can pick up a pattern. Next week a few of us are going on a field trip to tour the facilities of eQuilter.com which is based in Boulder, CO. Lots of things are planned going forward. As long as the weather is beautiful I'll be able to make the drive to Fort Collins. Winter may make attendance at meetings hap hazard but I'm enjoying it right now. So my advice to anyone moving to a new place is to join the local neighborhood quilt guild.

This was a completely original design. I wanted to try a few things that I have seen, but hadn’t attempted yet. The “hidden” drawer in the side of the top main drawer was a good learning experience and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Also, this was the first time I tried giving the face some curve to it as well, if you can tell… But that was also a good learning experience. Finally, I figured I’d try something to make the top a simple and quick place to set things down if you’re in a hurry or just need to place them for easy access later. The body is made of Douglas Fir and the handles I made from Leopard wood. All in all, pretty happy about the way it turned out! All comments welcomed :)

Considering I just used my wife’s measuring cup to measure denatured alcohol, and a baby bottle to measure shellac flakes, am I too legit to quit? P.S. baby bottles are marvelous for measuring volume by the ounce.

To prepare for the next phase of the makeover, I demoed the old work bench that has served me well for the last 20+ years. Fortunately, it was built with drywall screws and came apart easily. I only had to pull the 6 nails that I used to fasten it to the wall. I called a friend and he came over and loaded it up. In a week or so, I’ll go help him set it up in his garage. I cleaned up the area and painted the part of the wall that I could get to. Then with a lot of pushing and pulling, I managed to move the toolbox down the wall to where I wanted it to sit. It is heavy and thank goodness the heavy duty casters worked great. Then I painted the wall that had been blocked by the toolbox. The wall is starting to look pretty good. Fresh paint always helps! :-) I have a blank canvas! :-) Part of my makeover plan is to build and install cabinets above the rolling toolbox. With the toolbox in place, I was ready to start building the two cabinets that will be mounted on the wall above it. I bought a couple of sheets of Birch plywood from Clark's Hardwood Lumber Co. – a local lumber distributor. They have a lot of hardwood to chose from. The birch was $40/sheet which is as good as I can get in my area for 3/4 inch A/B plywood. Here is a pic of my “plan”. I had to make a couple of adjustments on the fly so take the dimensions with a grain of salt! :-) Each cabinet has three components. Each cabinet will have six compartments for storing plastic “tackle trays” which have everything from screws to bolts…and more. With 12 compartments, I can keep the most used trays within easy reach and have the others stored for use if needed. Immediately above these compartments will be six compartments with 1/4 inch plywood dividers. These will be used to store drills/ drivers, nail guns, etc. Again, all within easy reach. Above those compartments will be a storage area with shelf pins so shelves can be adjusted to whatever height I need. I am pretty stoked about this design. I think it is going to work out great. Later I will build the face frames and add doors to the top portion. So, let’s get to cutting, routing, painting and get ‘em put together. I’d like to mention here that to break down the plywood sheets, I used a track saw that I bought recently with this project in mind. It is the CS55 model made by Scheppach. It looks identical to the Grizzly model in every way. I also bought the 55 inch track from Grizzly to give me over 100 inches of saw capability. All parts fit like they came out of the same box. :-) So far, I haven’t had any problems with the saw or track pieces and I am getting more comfortable with the saw with each use. Here are the two sides of the first cabinet with my layout lines marked for routing. I have an exact width dado jig made similar to the one The Wood Whisperer built. Thanks for the inspiration, Marc. I used a 1/2 inch flush trim bit to cut the 3/4 inch and the 1/2 inch dadoes. For the 1/4 inch dadoes, I switched to a guide bushing and used a 3/16 router bit made specifically for undersize plywood. I took a lot of time to layout where the dadoes needed to go, and fortunately for me, all worked out perfect. I guess I was just lucky. After drilling the shelf pin holes, I was ready to paint and assemble it.Here it is ready to hang. Touch up painting will come later. Here is the cabinet hanging on the wall before I moved the toolbox. Trial fit with some of my tools and tackle trays. Close up! This pic is after I relocated the toolbox. When my friend came over, he helped me scoot the cabinet over a couple of inches so it is now in the right spot. Next up is some electrical mods. I am going to put in a couple of receptacles connected with 1/2 inch EMT conduit. Stay tuned. more coming soon.

Ok, so I posted a project a little while back where I was experimenting with thin wood bookmarks made by doing a small marquetry piece and then applying it to another piece of veneer as a substrate. Unfortunately so far the experiment has not been a total success. I’m happy with the strength and durability of them, and my wife has been very happy with her’s, with one caveat: it twisted. Had it cupped it wouldn’t be as noticeable, but twisted takes a little something away from it. Now, I know the wood moves, but I was hoping to find some way to avoid the worst of it. So far, the only test pieces that haven’t twisted were the ones that had a good amount of crossing grain, the ones where the grain in both layers mostly runs the same way are the ones that are twisting. the cross grain ones still cup a bit but it’s not horrible. A test peice I did that deliberatly crossed the grain from the front and back cupped some but did so evenly. I did one test that had 3 layers, with the core going across the others, and this one stayed very flat. I realize that I’m not going to eliminate the wood movement but I would like to minimize or control it. I’m wondering if this is a project that I’m just going to have to give up on, or if anyone might have any suggestions on other solutions I might try to either minimize the twist or at least even it throughout the finished piece? I am using mostly either very straight grained veneer or some highly figured ones.