Butterfingers and Beeswax

I have been sadly lax about posting this summer--happily enough, I can blame it on having a lot of fun doing other creative-type things! I've been turning marbles and driftwood into suncatchers, needlefelting on some Christmas gifts for folks, gardening, setting up a fun little sitting area on my side porch, and moving my spinning gear into a more pleasantly accessible part of the house (downstairs by the television ;)). If that isn't enough, I have some more Christmas giftwork planned and am intending to turn some copper pipes into wind chimes in the next week or so. I'm in a head space right now where I'm most content when working on a project, so when outside my hands are rarely still. With school starting (I'll have both kids in morning classes this year for the first time!), the evenings becoming deliciously crisp, and canning season beginning in earnest, I figured it was time to share a bit of what I've been doing recently. Before I do so, though, I need to mention that my tool of choice for this project was a sadly dull Swiss Army Knife my Dad gave me in grade 9. I, of course, asked my husband to sharpen it, then became distracted, sliced my hand open and ended up in the emergency room waiting for stitches. After waiting an hour to have the need for stitches confirmed and being told my wait could be expected to stretch into the 6.5 hour range, I decided to go home and try my luck with a bandaid. I had serious doubts that night about whether it would work, as the wound reopened several times with rather dramatic results, but it seems to be doing well enough now--two days later.

Curious what my butterfingers were making?

This is a willow branch I salvaged from some of the pruning I've done around the yard. It seemed like a nice stout stick, so I set it aside and ended up having quite a bit of fun playing around with it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I'm considering turning it into a holder for suncatchers to use in my dining room window. I've a good bit of sanding left to do yet, and will be shining it up with a nice beeswax finish.

Here's another picture with a Pop Shoppe bottle for scale. I had completely forgotten how much fun it is to sit with a stick and a jackknife and just aimlessly carve away. It has inspired a couple more interesting (and *planned*) projects that I'm sure I'll share at a later date.

In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to the boys starting school--they won't both be in class everyday until September 17th. That 2.5 hours to myself every morning has been a long time coming and, by times, hard-earned! I intend to make the most of it. I'm also pretty stoked about having tickets to the great lake swimmers show at Barrymore's on the 12th--I'm not sure who I'm taking yet, but whatever happens it's bound to be an awesome show! :)