Pots and pens

Hi all,
At last I've got my new computer, the last one decided it had had enough and left me in the lurch. Still, I've got a new one now so I can start posting again.

Of course having no computer to distract me meant that I could spend more time in the workshop. It was there that I decided to have a go at turning a very small pot, which I ebonised with a spray of the same name from Chestnut.

You can see by the size of the two pence piece that it is pretty small. When I showed it my wife she asked if she could have it to do some painting on. Apparently, she had been watching some dot painters on youtube who were painting rocks with dots. She was taken with the idea and, seeing as we were fresh out of rocks, my reckoned that my little pot would be just right for some dot treatment.

Here is the pot with spots. She said she really enjoyed doing this project but it was a bit on the small side. I replied that size isn't everything but agreed to turn her a bigger one.
Here it is.

It's about three times as big as the other one and I gave it to her expecting to be amazed after she'd done her stuff on it.
An hour later she came back with it in a right mess. Apparently, she'd made a mistake and because she was using acrylic paints she was unable to get it all off and start again.
"Can you clean it up a bit and respray it black," she asked.
I did has she asked and gave it back to her again. However, the next day, she came back with the same request because she hasd smudged one of the dots and whilst trying to clean it off she smudged some more.
I just smiled and sorted it out again. The following day she bought it back for the third time.
"You can have your bloody pot back," she said, "I've gone right off dot painting."
She is very arty crafty and is always flitting from one medium to another, but she does produce some very nice stuff.

I resprayed it yet again and it is now sitting on a shelf in my workshop while I figure out what to do with it. Any suggestions welcome as long as they are clean.

Following the pot escapade I wanted to make something pretty and fast so I opted for a pen.

This one is turned from a piece of maple on a Zeta pen kit from https://taylorsmirfield.co.uk/
they do some beautiful pen kits.

To give the pen a bit of colour, I divided it into random shapes with my pyrography iron and then coloured them in with various colours of wood stains from the Chestnut sample range. I then sprayed it  with Chestnut Melamine lacquer to give it a glossy finish.

I like it and so did the Mrs, she grabbed it and swapped it for the one in her handbag that she baggsied when I first took up pen turning. And here's me thinking of opening a shop on Etsy, chance would be a fine thing because she wants to keep everything I make, except for the black pot of course.

In my next post there is going to be a word of warning. I was standing at my lathe last week and was almost clubbed to death. I will tell you about sad little episode in my next post.