Epic Fail Woodturning Project

Happy spring forward day! We’ve had a gorgeous weekend working outside and cleaning up the house for spring. It started raining in the middle of my landscaping project, so I pulled the tools into the barn and decided to work on a woodturning project I’ve had in progress since before Christmas.

This project has been a PROBLEM. It was The Pen That Would Never Be Finished because I kept screwing it up! Today I finally finished it after a lot more mishaps and shot a video this evening to share it with you:
So the two little bits of wood in my pen cost less than $5, but for the die hard way I fought to make them work you’d think they cost $50! I could have chucked them in the trash at any point and started over and saved myself an enormous amount of time and effort.
But sticking with this little project did feel good. While it’s far from perfect, it taught me so much about putting pen projects together (ALWAYS read the instructions), and what not to do from now on.

So understand I wasn’t pursuing perfection with this project – I was just seeking a finished result that would function. I finally got there today and despite the very obvious flaws, I couldn’t be happier! Sometimes sticking with a project in spite of the difficulty is the whole point and actually can make you like the finished thingy better.

Let’s go create,

Leah Day

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

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