It's Been a Year

I think that everyone is questioning what is normal anymore. My year has been very normal and normalcy for me is mostly that life revolves around my making and working on things I make from wood. With a dozen and more decent-sized projects filmed, made, stacked up and under my belt, I remind myself of just how fortunate I am to have been able to keep up with my work even though my workload actually near doubled.

Looking through my archives of pictures for 2020 I even took myself by surprise. This hall stand for coats and shoes, brollies, scarves and hats is a great success in my house. I installed the prototype there as a temporary answer until I design yet another for my Sellers Home piece yet to be designed and made.

The thing that makes it difficult is that this piece is about as good as it gets and will hold all of the daily coat and shoe needs for a family of six. Can I do as well the next time, when I build the new design for Sellers Home? Well, I did it with the Sellers Home Rocking chair, of that, I am thoroughly convinced. This rocking chair aligns with all the stars for me. It fits like a glove and fully supports me throughout.

Then remember this, my clunker to classic saw handle revisit on a brand new S&J saw? It's a great exercise in shaping and searching for the perfect fit to your personal comfort. How important is that? Well, it transformed the saw and not only in comfort and appearance but in functionality too. I felt that I had the most perfect control once this was done and it was not my imagination!

Following on from shaping saw handles the hand mirrors with inlays and chip carving came together. These were a very nice addition and they are utterly hand made and without anything more than a hand router, and some shaping tools like spokeshaves and rasps and scrapers. Just an afternoon's work for anyone, that's all!

Ask yourself if these would not make stunning gifts for Christmas and birthday presents. Imagine.

Of course, as it usually is wIth me, I didn't just make one, I made four. Two went for presents!

My Craftsman-style tool carrier is a nice and enjoyable piece to make and for someone wanting to establish their hand skills this hits all of the highs for a high-five when done! You will learn a great deal from this and that includes some very precise layout procedures. Loads of dovetails and some mortise and tenons as features too.

It wasn't too long before I made a series of projects I would need to film myself and this was really a first for me because we have two full-time videographers trying to keep up with our output.

Here I may take the liberty of skimming the surface a little because though ten projects were filmed by me, there are in some cases repeats of similarity as in say the pâté spreaders, the dovetail templates and the marking gauges.

I did enjoy the challenge of filling in the gaps while we all worked out what two-meter rules were and then too what it was to shield if we were indeed particularly vulnerable.

Most everyone here started to work full time from home and that left me with the run of the place for several weeks if not months. My creative juices worked overtime to design and make so make I did. What else could I do. Nothing had stopped me this far and certainly I would do everything to see that COVID wasn't going to stop me either.

Alongside my palletwood garden boxes came my shoji screens. This was another new one for me.

After that came the plane totes from yew and then too the knobs.

These knobs were not turned though. They were carved by hand.

Some questioned the possibility but then saw how I did it in the free videos.

I will continue this tomorrow. I am only up to May