September 2009

Welcome to this issue of Creative Woodworks & Crafts!

Our Reader's Gallery continues to turn up interesting people and projects. Two readers from Saskatchewan, Canada—Suzanne Boulanger and Anna LeBlanc—are very enthusiastic about their new hobby, which is intarsia. In fact, thanks to the guidance of their capable teacher, Aurele Gareau, their "very-first" intarsia project came out magnificently, and amazingly, it is their own design! The project is based upon the famous medical symbol, the "caduceus," but it has been modified so that half of it is "female," and half is "male." The design is a fitting symbol for these two women, as both work in the field of health and healing.

We also have an interesting feature about Jeff Powell, a skilled intarsia artist who has also gotten deeply into pen making. Of special interest to this publication is that Jeff has integrated the scroll saw into the pen-making process—he developed several techniques for creating scroll sawn pen blanks which, once turned on a lathe, produce remarkable, colorful writing instruments which allow more imagery to appear on them than we've ever seen before. Jeff has found these scrolled pen blanks to be in strong demand among woodturners, so that even if you have no desire to do woodturning, just making the blanks has the potential to earn good money. Later this year, Jeff will flesh-out in detail some of the techniques he has developed for preparing these blanks.

The Scarecrow Clock was made by a small team of talented people, and it is the first of many such projects to appear in this publication. The team consists of Bob Valle, who designs the patterns; Ray Wilckens, who cuts them out and makes slight pattern modifications when needed; and Jane Guthrie, who paints them. Behind the scenes, John Polhemus carefully checks each pattern for cut-ability and line weight. I can tell you that the projects being generated by this "dream team" look really good, and we're excited about offering them to you with every new issue of Creative Woodworks & Crafts. The idea with the painting is not to go "overboard" with it, but simply to offer basic, tasteful painting instructions to give you the option to add color to your work.

That's it for now, so until the next issue, happy woodworking, health and prosperity to all!

Sincerely,