My kingdom for a mild weather weekend...
Autumn seems to have taken a colder turn in Northwest Ohio. Gone are the days of 50 degree weekends, to be replaced with 30's and occasional snow. Not to be bested by nature, I have made the best of the colder temps and got some lathe time in. This is fairly important since I have a bulk of Christmas gifts to make yet (although I haven't completely ruled out the possibility of temporarily relocating the lathe to my mother-in-laws heated basement for the winter). So from left to right, we have a couple of different bottle stopper variants. I am really liking the style of the two on the right as the mandrel is much larger and the stopper blanks are a bit easier to manage. The smaller blanks, like the two on the left, require a much lighter touch and can catch quite badly (I broke a mandrel when I found this out the hard way). The next image is a series of pencil extenders which have gone over very well with artist friends. The third and fourth images are matched acrylic European ballpoint pens and letter openers in "granite" and "emerald". The last image is a pen and pencil set in a new style for me. This shape and hardware combination is called "Executive", and this particular set is finished in Bethlehem Olive Wood. So this is a good start on the Christmas list, but there is still a bunch left to turn. I expect I may be doing turning up until Christmas Eve at this rate.