More "learning"

New England = Christmas
At the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship we decorated the workshop for a pot luck dinner and hilarious Yankee Swap Thursday night. There was one more day of class when everyone was frantic about their project and then, poof... the teachers disappeared for a well-deserved rest until after the holiday. Many of us have hung around to work the secret extra bonus week.

Here is the frame and panel back to my piece, being glued up. Tomorrow, on my way out of town I will stop by and unclamp it, plane it a bit to fit properly and sit back and sigh with relief if all goes as planned. Am proud that I cut the grooves on the table saw with a dado blade and made the tongues in the panels by rabbetting them on the router table. The stiles and rails were joined with dominoes (floating tenons) because I wanted to try using the fancy pants German Festool but it was kinda a "learning" situation for me (read:frustrating/infuriating/throw the thing across the room/hate self/hate the Germans/coulda done it by hand faster&better/spend a day [another day, the first was drilling the mortises] hand-filing the dominoes so everything would line up). It might have been fine if I hadn't tried to line up 5 mortises per side the first time I used it. But honestly, I'm over it, really! Last week when I was going on and on about learning by making mistakes...well, I have sure been learning a lot. Below is me on the lathe. Yep, I finally "got" it, so family, if you're out there, definitely expect a Christmas tree ornament.

I had to include this shot of Cappy's Chowder House in Camden

and me donned in my gaye apparel while planing the dovetails on my casepiece.

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, everyone!