On 9 May the Club members met at Sam Staffan's shop, in Mackinaw City, Michigan, with Show & Tell and many Bring Back items for the raffle. Here are some pictures of the items. First pictures are of the Bring Back items.
Bring Back items on the right.
Bring Back items included blanks of Ash and Cherry.
Many of the Bring Backs were finished items to share with members thru the raffle. This is a top view of some of the items.
Here are some of the many Show and Tell items.
Many of the items have cut and polished stones incorporated.
The diversity and ingenuity are amazing and members freely explain how they did it.
Jim Rutledge is center background.
Carvings added to the items lids add character.
Steve Promo had an interesting story for this item. The vase is end grain turned and thru the crack you can see the wall thickness. However, Steve said he made the top and bottom caps fit snug inside the openings so when the vase contracted it had resistance as it compressed around the caps. The stress was relieved by the wood cracking.
After the Raffle there were two presentations / demonstration of using a skew and alternates to make rounded beaded sections on a spindle. Part I was done by Jim Rutledge and Part II was done by Steve Promo. Here are the videos of the demonstrations.
First Part I by Jim Rutledge.
Part II of the Skew discussion was by Steve Promo and follows: Many thanks to the members who brought things in and to Jim Rutledge and Steve Promo for doing the demonstrations and discussing making beads on a spindle.
Last Friday Gloria and I visited the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior AZ. WE had been there before, but it has been awhile. WE got on the road pretty late so it was nearly 11 am by the time we arrived. This wasn't a photography outing. so the harsh light wasn't a biggie ...but I did bring a camera.
There are a lot of very large Eucalyptus trees there and in fact Gloria is sitting on a cutoff from a tree that was cut up.
Our trip to Yosemite was timed for the Dogwood blooms. But the dogwoods were a bit impatient this year and by the time we got there the blooms were wrapping up. I did find a few blooms still in decent shape. One is pictured here. The Pacific Dogwood flowers are quite large, 3 - 6 inches across and are more creamy in color.
I found out about this nesting site a few weeks ago and didn't have a camera with me. Yesterday I was back in that area and checked the nesting site and she was still on the nest. The male was near by as well but in heavy foliage, so no pick. This was shot with a 500mm prime so I didn't need to get too close.
I grabbed a few quick shots and left the area. Fortunately she was looking my way in couple of them.
