This is my new thing -- making hand-crafted Christmas ornaments on my turn lathe.  I started making some of these in 2010, but gave them all away.  This year, I made about 70 or so from Bradford Pear, black walnut, oak, cherry, maple, poplar, sasafrass, rosewood, lignum vitae, zebrawood, marble wood, and mahogany.  I sold most of those, gave some away, and kept a couple for our tree.  This one is Terrye's favorite.  It combines a maple knob on the top, a central portion made from the seedpod of the Banksia Tree (an Australian species), and a drop finial made from cherry.

Spalted Japanese Maple Bowl

 This is the first free-form bowl I have made.  It is of spalted Japanese Maple with a single hand-turned maple leg.  I made this bowl in a weekend. The swirling grain and spalting in the burl are really nice, and the natural edges and imperfections are nicely organic, but I got a little too zealous and gouged a hole in the side. That's why you see a darker oval piece in the bigger of the two basins.  The plug is Bradford Pear and adds character.  Besides, I had too many hours in this to toss it in the stove just because of a little hole. 

 The corner hutch in our dining room was an engagement gift I made for my wife in 1981.  It was a free-standing piece, made of pine, and originally housed our blue spatterware dishes. It got a permanent home when we built our house in 1990 and now houses our wedding china.  The long hunt table to the right is also a piece I made.  It too is pine, and the legs are repurposed from the kitchen table my mother's parents used when they set up housekeeping in 1924.

 This library table is made from repurposed walnut; it was too good to throw away!

Armoire

I made this armoire to match a bedroom suite we bought.

This is my first turned bowl.  It is made from maple, walnut, cherry, and tulip tree.

Some of my work

 This is the first piece of inlaid work I ever attempted.  I received the busts of Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Leonardo for Christmas several years ago and decided they needed a suitable display shelf.  Since they were Florentine Renaissance artists, I figured a Florentine Renaissance style display would be appropriate. So, I modeled  mine after the colored marble inlay employed by Alberti in his facade for the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy.  The triptych display is made from twelve different woods (walnut, cherry, tulip tree, Bradford Pear, apple, cherry, American holly, magnolia, butternut, mahogany, 150 year-old heart pine, and Japanese maple burl for the large arched panels behind each bust.