Ziggy oils the newly finished Shaker-style blanket chest

We’ve been having way too much fun for the past two weeks. April, Jacob, and I just spent the latter half of December with our great friend Greg Pennington of Hendersonville, TN. Greg is a world class Windsor chairmaker with a killer timber frame workshop to boot. When we met two winters ago, Greg graciously invited April and I to make chairs with him and so began on winter woodworking tradition. Since then we’ve learned a lot of new woodworking skills under his most expert guidance (though he would never claim any of his amazing skills as such himself.) This trip, we embarked on a pretty ambitious series of projects, which I’ll preview here!

Jacob’s first banjo nearing completion and ready for strings

During our trip, Jacob made not one, but two astonishing banjos from scratch. He made every last piece with an amazing attention to detail, something I’ve never had the privilege of experiencing before. The incredible accuracy required was, quite frankly, beyond me… and all the effort definitely paid out. I’ll share more photos of his work soon, but in the meantime check out Greg’s post about Jacob’s handmade banjos. They are a thing of beauty, and only a preview of more instrument building work to come. To think that these are his very first attempts…

Jacob plays the first song on his new banjo

April finally brought her spinning wheel to completion this winter. Last winter, she got the guts of it done, but it still needed some fine-tuning. She did an amazing job, down to every last turning and random piece of hardware she needed to fabricate. She lavished the entire project with love and attention, and I know she’s excited to put it to work. I can’t wait to see her spinning wool this winter myself.

I made two new Windsor chairs, and I’m glad I made the decision to do two at the same time. It really helped cement all of those many skills necessary in making a chair. I got double the practice at once.

April turning knobs for the drawer of the blanket chest

April and I also built a Shaker-style blanket chest, which was our first introduction to the world of dovetails. I had the time of my life, and was very much amused by the feeling of “miniature timber framing” while cutting out all of those dovetails with saw and chisel.

Oh la la… note the curly cherry

The blanket chest is a proud new addition to our home, something that will be cherished for many years to come. See Greg’s post here for more photos of the building process. I’ll put more photos of my own up soon, too!