I accidentally started a tradition.

When my oldest daughter had her baby shower, she needed a bowl to hold envelopes. The theme of her shower was “Chevrons” so I made a bowl with a segmented chevron pattern around the rim.  Since we already knew she was having a boy, I carved his name in the bottom of the bowl and inlaid it with ebonized walnut.  Then, on the bottom next to where I signed it, I wood burned a greeting for him. My intention was to make something nice for the shower that my daughter would appreciate. When my second daughter had her baby,  she asked me in the hospital when Kenlee would be getting her bowl.  That’s how it started!   Now that my third daughter has had a grandchild, I need to get a bowl made for her.

I decided to make a segmented bowl, out of Brazilian Mesquite  with the feature ring of Purple Heart and maple. To try to add some thing different,  I decided to use a different number of segments and every other ring, that way it didn’t look like a brick wall pattern. Apparently, I should’ve paid better attention in geometry class in high school, because as I changed the number of segments with each ring, the ending shape when I stacked them all altogether just looked wrong!   To fix it, I went to 12  segments per ring and set the eight segment rings aside.  I also had some 12 segment rings that were the wrong side, so I sat them aside as well.  By the time I got done gluing up all the outcast rings, I ended up with enough material to make three bowls.  This is the first one I finished.  I really like the way it turned out!

Now the dilemma, do I give Olivia all of the bowls  since two of them will be a matching set, or do I give her this one and save the two outcast bowls for me. If I give her more than one, I’m sure I’ll have to take a second for the other two grandchildren – and any future grandchildren – to realize they need a matching set as well. If I keep it for myself, well… That doesn’t seem very grandfatherly.