Saturday 9 June 2012

amonster speaks


Our eldest recently left home to really start his own life, new job, new house and new location. However it wasn’t so much losing a son as gaining room(s) for all of Sue’s collection of spindles, wheels and looms, not to mention the stash, or hoard as it’s become. Do I mean hoard? Going back to Viking times they were a weird mass of hairy objects taking over parts of the country…. Yes Hoard is about right!!

But can I really complain? Since turning a couple of cricket stumps into a pair of extreme knitting needles for Sue a couple of years ago, I’ve become hooked on making things from wood. Various tools have followed together with a bit of a wood collection that is taking over the garage. Whenever we go walking, I keep my eye out for a good stick to throw ‘for the dog’.  One of these days we may actually get a dog, but for now the stick becomes part of my ‘hoard’.

I’m impressed by all the wonderful clever designs I see around for spindles and the real artisans who make them. But for me it’s about what the wood wants to ‘give up’. I’ve often said I make sawdust and things fall out, and in many ways that’s how I feel. I want to make things that people like, enjoy holding and playing with and if it also does a functional job, so much the better. So if you buy a spindle, or any other turned wood related product from us, whilst there may be similar ones around, no one will ever have the same, as I’m not that clever and trees just don’t grow like that.