When my oldest daughter was pregnant with my first grand baby (a boy) she had a baby shower. The “theme” was “chevrons”. I don’t mean to sound like a typically dumb guy, but I honestly didn’t know that baby showers had themes. I just thought it was a chance for family and friends to get together to say congratulations and maybe leave behind some diapers. I also knew what a chevron was, but didn’t know you could use it as a “thing”. Hell, I didn’t even know there needed to be a thing!
I made a bowl to hold “stuff” for the party and even figured out how to make a chevron pattern out of wood, so I added a ring that looked like chevrons. Just to make it “baby themed”, since I knew what the impending name and sex would be, I added a little hand written blurb on the bottom, for the baby. Honestly, it was that straightforward.
When daughter #2 told me she was pregnant, I was thrilled! She was planning on having a baby shower (a girl this time). I had learned it was standard practice to have a shower and wondered if there would be a theme. While I was trying to figure out how to ask without looking stupid, she made the offhand comment “I wonder what kind of bowl you’ll make for her”. I had never realized I’d somehow set a precedent, and started thinking of what to make to meet the new expectation. This time, it was a plain bowl with her name and birthday added in pink inlay.
Grand baby #3 ended up having three bowls made, each segmented in purpleheart and maple. It wasn’t on purpose, just the result of making the initial bowl incorrectly due to segmenting errors. While trying to correct my mistake, I ended up making enough replacement parts to assemble three bowls. My new grand daughter got one, my daughter kept the other two.
That was when the wheels on the bus started to wobble and fly off the axles. “early divorce” issues took priority, followed by criminal trial issues, more divorce issues, the job loss issues, the moving to a new house dilemma, then a forced retirement, quitting the turning club, starting a new job, Bob’s downward spiral and eventual passing… Just a constant string of stuff! My kids, however, kept having babies and I quickly fell behind on making bowls. Next up, regardless of what else was going on, was daughter #3’s first son. I remember sitting in court, waiting for the trial to start while working out logistics for what would be a very complex bit of segmenting, where each segment would be one character in the baby’s name, and each segment would be 3D printed and filled with epoxy. My attorney, thinking I was working on some court related issue, would see the sketches and calculations and ask what I was writing out, assuming it was divorce related. I tried to correct her, explaining that it was the plan I was working on for a new bowl for the next grandson, but I don’t think she ever understood. Eventually, this plan became THE plan, but there were problems. I didn’t know if I had the skills to pull it off, I didn’t know much about working with epoxy, yet, and there was still a pesky little court order that prevented me from buying a 3D printer. Even if I got one, what I wanted to do with the 3D printer wasn’t exactly beginner level, so I knew I’d be punching underwater the whole time. I put the bowl on hold while life played out, but I never abandoned the idea.
Now that I’ve quit working, have gotten over Bob’s passing enough to turn again, and life has settled down, I realize I had become a hermit and still short on making bowls for the rest of the grand babies.
Making the bowl I had planned in court still isn’t going to happen (still need equipment and knowledge) so I had to think differently. “Thinking differently” meant looking for some kind of inspiration. It started with simple shop cleaning. I put in headphones, which I don’t normally do, built some additional shelves, then started pawing through all the old blanks and partially completed projects I had laying around. As I stacked them neatly on the new shelves, I picked up a very old piece of oak, looked at it and remembered what I had thought the wood wanted to become. Then my annoying muse, who has an equally annoying habit of pointing out all the things I’d overlooked, took over the whole project and started whispering bits of a new project in my ear. The initial plan from court was scrapped, but somehow I knew this piece of oak wanted to become something with a lid. Easy enough, but then it whispered the lid should look like a river table. No, the top of the lid should look like a river table, but the bottom of the lid shouldn’t have ANY epoxy visible, just an open space where a name and birth date could be added using a wood burner. Once the muse fully lodged its voice in my head, I knew my new plans were not going to change.
Surprisingly, the whole project came together VERY quickly. I think it took as much time to watch the epoxy cure as it did to do the rest.
In the end, I looked at the bowl my grandson Wyatt is (finally) getting, albeit at least 5 years or so late, which looks NOTHING like what I’d planned out in court, nothing like anything else I’ve made, and nothing like the other “baby bowls” I’ve made. As I thought “I hope he likes it”, I think I heard the muse chuckle as she left.
With this one finished, that leaves only three more grand baby bowls to make and I’ll be caught up! That’s was the working theory, but then last weekend daughter #4 casually mentioned she wouldn’t mind having a second baby. I smiled and told her that’s not a surprise since she’s an excellent mother and I could see her adding another baby to the family. I also quietly thought to myself that meant I’d be 4 new baby bowls behind and would need to get working on the currently growing list, quickly!
I wonder if the shop needs to be cleaned again, because I could really use a little help…