yarnporn.com

Technically I have a personal blog that has a shopping cart (with stuff for sale) so it is a shopblog, but I really detest some shopblogs because they are nothing but “Buy this, and ooh lookie, buy this too” and “I just made these, and wouldn’t you know everyone wants one?” So I try to be good and not post my wares on the blog part of it but hope that if people like what I make for myself they’ll check out what I have made to sell on their own.

I wanted to show off a spindle that I turned because it’s really awesome and I love it, but didn’t want it to be “Oooh my spindle is at eBay, go buy it.” It sold right away so I’m hoping that it’s cool that I share it now, and I’m not coming off as someone that blogs merely to promote my own commercial interests. Usually Matt turns the whorls and I turn the shafts and make the hooks then we share in finishing duties. Greta does the supervising from her shop pillow.

This spindle is one of the few where I did everything but the fit up and gluing, I turned and finished both the shaft and the whorl.

There’s this perception with spinners that if you have a woodturner of your own or are a woodturner that somehow it interprets to being a happier spinner with a personal plethora of spindles. My personal spindles are the very first spindles Matt and I ever made, and one that Matt made me for Mother’s day a few years ago. I think if anything, being a woodturner made me a more conservative spindler, I know I really don’t need a collection of spindles to keep me busy, I know my style of spinning and have the spindles that fit me.I think that spinners should stand in front of a lathe least once in their lives and actually turn something (even if it’s not spinning related) just to see what woodturners put up with. Even with protective gear we get thwaps, pinches, splinters and burns, we inhale kerf and dust, we put up with bits of wood going horribly wrong and flying at chest or face at high velocity, and it takes a lot of physical endurance for the most part– 99% of the time we manage to make lovely items, that makes the physical suffering and potential hazards worth it all. Most of the time things go right, I don’t want to make it sound as if turners are taking their lives into their hands everytime they set up with a skew or gauge but we have to be careful, and sometimes– no matter how good you are– some chunks of wood are just evil.

Despite this some people treat woodturners as if they are just monkeys with chisels, or they think that woodturners simply make a master and then do all the work by duplicator. Then some a-hole woodturner on eBay supports this concept by saying “most spindle makers use duplicators to make spindles..blah blah blah.” No, we’re just better turners. I don’t own a duplicator– they are expensive, require a bed extention that isn’t made for my preferred lathe (Shopfox), and they tear the cr@p out of the wood.

I seriously don’t know the guy or his eBay username but I really want him to get a visit from the clue fairy, if he took a few minutes to do his research then he wouldn’t be such a liar. Or maybe he is a liar on purpose and just doesn’t care.

The other part that really crawls under my skin is when I do spiral work, again, it is something that might be done by machines with a g’zillion dollars and a huge shop. I do spirals when I feel like they are needed, and when I’m in the mood. I use a pencil, ruler, protractor and scratch paper to design them and then pencils, pocket knife, maybe some small files, and lots of sandpaper and time to render spirals.

You can tell the difference between spirals done by hand and those done with machines, at least I can, a handmade spiral is actually more perfect than a machine spiral (because a machine can’t feel when the density of a wood changes), there’s no trick to spirals done by hand, you do the layout, you cut wood, you do the work; the only purpose the lathe serves at that point is to act as a holder for the piece, motor turned off and unplugged.

Of all woodworking you’ll find that turners are equal opportunity, delicate wallflowers can be hella’ turners just as much as the big hairy burly manly men. Typically male and female turners treat each other as people and fellow craftsmen– it’s a long standing tradition unique to turning. Another woman woodturner told me how when she took turning classes in the mid-60s as part of an occupational program how the instructor pulled her and some ‘skinny fellas’ aside and asked that they do extra turning after classes so they could build some extra muscle needed for production turning, and that was the most attention paid to her as far as being female, given the times that’s pretty darned progressive.

It bugs me that other skilled crafts haven’t caught up with the times in that way, there are women that really freak out when they see a male knitter or men that totally lose it when they meet a female woodworker. It bothers me when people impose this artificial definition of gender on creativity, it’s just wrong and stupid for so many reasons.

I have to go now before I start ranting incoherently. I think I’ll go chop up some wood and then paint something pink.

ETA, December 12, 2006 (2:06 am): I wrote all of this myself under the influence of cough syrup.? (Just thought you should know, sorry.)