sewing box

I went back to John Wilson's Home Shop this weekend and built the sewing box. It measures about 9" tall, about 10" across and is 15" long. The sides and bottom are made of cherry, the top is bird's eye maple, and the inside tray is birch and cherry. I put one coat of Watco Danish Oil on it this afternoon. It has been rainy all day and is very cloudy and almost getting dark outside so the lighting isn't perfect for photography, but the cherry and maple are beautiful. Again I made mistakes, most of them on the tray this time. The dividers are supposed to be entirely pegged into the tray, but I was getting tired by Sat afternoon and didn't do a great job. I ended up using some glue and in retrospect I should have just left the dividers out completely and it would have looked better. The picture below is of the veneer and wood stock that I purchased to make 6 very small boxes. I plan to construct a set of 2 for myself, two for Chris and an extra set in case I get into trouble. This would complete the smaller diameter of our nesting boxes. The smallest box is just 1"x3" and the other is just a little bigger. They both fit into the smallest box of the nesting

set that we made last week. I added the pencil for scale. Not only are the boxes small, but the veneer is thin because it has to be bent very tightly to construct such a small box. These boxes are glued instead of pegged and purely decorative, but I thought that it would be fun to complete the set. Of course, there are bigger boxes, the sewing box is a #8 and our nested sets only have up to a #5. There is also prepared stock for box #9-16, but judging by the difficulty of construction for the #8 box, these might be very tough to put together. My basket group still wants to go back next year, so they may be in my future yet.

We are off to Maryland on Thursday night this week to visit family and friends and go to the Maryland Fiber Festival at the Howard County Fairground on Saturday. I have been wanting to go to this fiber festival for a couple years now, so I am excited that I am going to be able to go this year. P has a friend who has a booth and so we will visit her and see beautiful wool, yarn, roving, and spinning wheels. Of course, there will be a sheep to shawl competition and sheep shearing going on, as well as rabbits, maybe llamas, and other animals that have fur that can be spun into yarn (pretty much anything if one was desperate). I am excited and want to see everything. I certainly don't really need anything of course, but just the tactile sensory overload is worth going to Maryland. And I get to see K and E, L, D and P. It will be a good time.