Now the monsoon is settling in for a few days, trying not to get cabin fever,

I've finished a few things and have got round to taking some pics... bit of a mish mash of the last three weeks. Bored of working with sticky enamel paint and having a liking for vintage ads, I painted a couple in acrylic , what a joy.. no waiting for each layer to dry!

Loving the flowers summer brings, in particular a mexican hat plant which looks like a sculpted piece of jewellery, the turqoise 'beads' surrounding the leaf are the seeds.

Painting on slate for a change

Painted a watering can for mum (Mrs. Tiggywinkle.. not Tiggywrinkle!) and fiddled about with other things... a demijon Ben originally cut a entrance for a candle which I popped a plant in for the 'summer'.... I love these.

Found a piece of Ivy that lent itself to being wrapped round a candle, and almost finished Ben's sign!

I'm currently trying to make a frame from a rescued piece of Georgian ( I think) mahogany furniture, the top piece is stunningly carved, with a leafy and shell like design. The plan is to be able to do several paintings to fit in it, probably advertising signs, one depicting something of that period, one comic..a circus perhaps or cures for dreadful ailments and something else I know that is wedged deep somewhere in the somewhat fading imagination!

As I write Ben has just come in with a beautiful bowl he just 'knocked up' on his new lathe, and a gorgeous ash bowl, AND several little chopping boards..(very sweet) for the Buzzard Fayre down in Cornwall. ( No doubt he will proudly show his latest wares soon!)He seems to be having fun on the lathe, bought from Harry, one of those priceless craftsmen, full of knowledge and handy tips, his wife decorates beautiful lace bobbbins (which Harry makes) with the most intricate detail I have ever seen, a masterful couple indeed!

Anyway, enough of blethering on, our weird chicken Korma has had her first brood of chicks...she really is a strange fowl.

A double sided sign for Loggi... his fav quotation being on the backside!!!

Can't believe it's already another 2 months since I last did a blog entry but, Sarah and I have had a busy couple o' months - Sarah's been painting like mad and has done some beautiful signs, among other things. One of which is for me! I'm sure she'll post piccies soon but for now here's some other bits to keep you interested...

We went to a country fair a month or so ago, Tom & Ben were putting up a small section of timber frame for demo and had been gave a stall but didn't need it so they let us use it - we only had a few hours notice to get things ready and didn't exactly have much to take, but we threw a load of stuff together.

(Ben Gillespie checking the frame)

Funnily enough our stall was right next to our friends Doug Fitch & Paul Cook who were sharing a stall - Doug makes beautiful medieval pottery and Cookie (who has his workshop in one of the barns sharing our courtyard) is an amazing carver and makes some beautiful chairs. (We are supposed to be sharing links with Doug but, all in good time!)

(Paul displaying his carved Holly cross)

As I wasn't supposed to be doing much while my thumb healed I was pretty limited as to what I could do, but did manage to make some more Elm shelfs and had just finished a little Elm stool ( I say finished; lucky nobody tried to pick it up as the glue was still drying while we were on the stall!)

(The top of this stool is much squarer than I would normally choose but is an extremely stunning piece of elm)

I decided I would like to try my hand at turning wood so borrowed Cookie's lathe and gave it a go; really enjoyed it and knocked a few bits out quite quickly. It was really nice to make things which only took an hour each rather than a couple of days! Was getting quite into it before the drive bit on Paul's lathe broke (oops; sorry Paul - still waiting to get it fixed!)

The pictures below show some candlesticks, a couple of lamp bases and ( the thing which I'm most proud of;) an apple wood mallet.....

(The four on the left are Apple wood, 3 on the right are Ash)

(Left; Apple lamp base, right; Apple candlestick, middle; Oak lamp base - I've just started a dark Oak base to stop it being so top-heavy)

(Light weight Apple wood carvers' mallet)

I enjoyed it so much in fact that we decided to look for a lathe on Ebay....

And here it is, an absolute bargain for 100 squid!

With my thumb on the mend I managed to go back to the reclaimed \ Burr Oak coffee table - as soon as I placed the top on I decided it didn't look right and have started to look for an alternative piece, which I may have found in the form of a 4 inch thick slab of Elm that Jim has "kicking about" - unfortunately it is, (I'd estimate) the best part of 4 metres long and up to about 2 foot wide so moving it may be a problem....

(This 2 inch thick slab is almost dwarfed by the frame)

The frame itself is just in the last stages of sanding so while I took a break to ponder the question of the top I decided to do a small Oak lamp table, this was supposed to be a quick and easy little project but, me being me, I changed things along the way and decided to fit a draw to it. This is the fourth draw I've made now and whilst dovetail joints are quite simple when working with straight wood - they are extremely complicated when dealing with old, reclaimed and very warped wood.

(Oak lamp table with dove-tailed draw, very nice Burr Oak top)

Consequentially I took a break halfway through - to save both my sanity and my fingers, and made a large frame for a chalk drawing Sarah did for me last year. Although I haven't made any of these since x-mas, I had done quite a few and have really learnt the knack for making them quickly. This is the largest one I've made and enjoyed making one again so much that I carried on and made a couple more. The next was for a really sweet picture Sarah bought from a really nice couple in Cornwall, they offer holidays in Romany Gyspy wagons and drew the picture to advertise their holidays (Sorry, I cut the web address off to fit it in the frame but will see about posting a link to their site).

The next frame was for a mirror, I only had square mirrors but wanted to make a long frame so decided to make it a double frame. It took a while to get the angles right so it didn't give a 'funfair' reflection but I'm very happy with the result.

The next week will probably mostly be spent waxing and polishing but I'm very keen to try my new lathe so it shouldn't be long till I have some more stuff to show!