A week of turning

Background: My wife, Mary Lou, and I signed up for our first Elderhostel activity. We chose craft activities at Cedar Lakes Center in Ripley, West Virginia. Mary Lou has been to that Center for many years for week long quilting sessions. This was my first visit and I had been forewarned that the facilities could be rather plain and the food more equivalent to school cafeteria food. Mary Lou signed up for a session to make a "Carolina Lily" quilted wallhanging. I signed up for a week of woodturning. Neither of us were familiar with our instructors.

I was totally happy with my experience. Cedar Lakes is run by the West Virginia Department of Education and serves as an outdoor education, recreation, and craft instruction facility for both school children, community groups and groups such as Elderhostel. I came home totally worn out but also relaxed and really pleased with the progress in turning that I had made. Meeting and working with eight other turners, some new to turning but several very accomplished, helped to add to my enjoyment.

My class was taught by a professional woodturner, Joe Smith, who has taught several wood turning classes at Cedar Hills. He gave us a series of turning projects from simple to more demanding. Joe was an encouraging and challenging instructor with a delightful sense of humor. This picture is a maple burl bowl that I turned and finished.

Over the next several posts I will talk about some of the projects and show some pictures of my work. However, a complete webalbum is embedded in the side column which will let you see a series of 49 pictures from this experience. For a full set to pictures of Cedar Lakes, my instructor and classmates, and some of our projects, use this address at Kodak Galleries.
This experience leaves me excited to return to the lathe and practice more bowl turning.