Cool things happening at Dedi-Woodworks I sold a Bald Eagle tonight, I was pretty surprised as it has been up on ETSY for a long time, there were a couple other ones cheaper but not better. Looking forward to starting it but first have to finish the Angel.

You can see some of my progress tonight most of her dress is shaped up, i'm really liking the Cherry and the way the grain adds to the flow of the dress, gonna be sweeeet to the max! I also shaped the lower part of the pillar you can see the top is missing, I still didn't like the way it was looking so I will cut another one, I'll probably stack cut it so as to get a great fit similar to how I cut the bottom half.

more on the angel

The angel is starting to take better shape now I have cut most of it, I cut the hair (yellow-heart) the flowers (bubinga), and the leaves (poplar) this afternoon. These are really hard pieces the leaves and flowers are about the size of small raisins. I liked the way the colors contrast and the flowers stand out. 

What I don't like is the way the pillar is looking I may end up cutting the whole thing again, I had already decided to leave out the small round embellishments. I tried a new method (for me) of cutting the two contrasting pieces, I stacked the two pieces and set my saw at a small angle and  cut them both at the same time. The theroy is you don't have any gaps and the pieces fit perfectly together. I seem to have cut at too much angle anyway I'm not sure what i'll do there.

Sunday I took 2 pieces to the State Fair of Texas, "Boot with Flowers" Intarsia piece and a box I call "Snake Heads".

 "Boot with Flowers" I had given  to my sister-in-law as a gift, for always being such a great lady, supporting and encouraging me in my Mothers fight with cancer. It's one of my favorite works I have made. It has 11 different woods and is very dimensional... to me it sort of pops off the wood. Of course she was thrilled to let me have it back and enter it in the fair, I do have some expectation that it will ribbon but you never know. It is made from Walnut, Padauk, Hard Maple, Mahogany, Poplar, Bubinga, Yellow-heart, Purple-heart, Aspen, Aromatic Cedar, and Western Red Cedar.

"Snake Heads" is a band saw box. It is cut out on a band saw from 1 chunk of wood actually I laminated 5 quarter-sawn White Oak boards to get my chunk. This is a very easy way to make a box and the shapes are basically unlimited. You can see from one of my first blogs another band-saw box. I entered this in the fair as I felt it was pretty unique.The drawers are lined with red flocking it was on our fireplace mantle but will probably put it up for sale after the fair.

Wish me luck!

Last few nights have been getting better only 90 or so in the garage have decided to start a new intarsia project "Remembrance" pattern designed by Bruce Worthington. I have loved this angel since I first saw it and had bought the pattern about a year ago. Not sure what I will do with this piece maybe auction it at the Fall Festival or maybe a Christmas present for someone very very special. It is going to be a lot of work and a lot of pieces.

I have decided to make the wings a curly hard maple, the dress from a really nice figured cherry, the skin will be sycamore (my favorite skin wood), and for the base I will use some spalted (damaged by a fungus) maple  not sure about the pillar, her hair or flowers just yet. 

I have made my copies of the pattern attached some of them to my wood and I have already cut the wing, skin, and top of the dress.

I have removed the pattern off the skin as there are no more cuts there. I plan on cutting out the major sections then cutting those up into smaller pieces I figure it will take about  2 weeks of evening garage time to cut it all out. Then the shaping and sanding. Ill try and keep posting progress as I go.

Today I finished a Macaw puzzle it was made from poplar and the stand is made from red-oak. It is the first puzzle that I have painted and I thought it turned out pretty good. I wanted to stain it and get some brighter colors but found that bright colored wood stains are very expensive. So I ended up thinning some acrylic paint and made a wash that turned out pretty good.

It did raise the grain, which means the original sanded smooth surface finish will get a rough texture from the grain being saturated with water. The grain will raise and then needs some light sanding when it is dry. I was nervous about this as the puzzle has a very tight fit and any expansion of the wood would make it harder to fit together... and it did but not as much as I thought. One reason this was so tight fitting is I used a #3 scrollsaw blade which leaves a very small kerf and some of the lager pieces which connect in several places have to fit just right to go together.

One of the things I love about this puzzle is you can hang it anywhere... it is free standing (well sitting anyway).