Egg Lathe

Over the past few years, I have attempted to learn Pysanka, which is the name for those beautifully decorated Ukrainian Easter Eggs. I have done some that I am happy with and some that are so bad they make me smile. I did a few with Christmas themes and they hang on our tree every year. It has been a few years since I have done any at all, but I find that I am once again getting interested.

I saw online that there is a tool called an egg lathe which helps you to make perfectly straight lines around the egg. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but believe me when I tell you that although crooked, wavy lines look charmingly rustic, they don’t get the oohs and ahhs the more professional eggs will elicit. I could order one online, but I feel that it would be better for me if I made my own. Most wood working projects have different design plans for free on the internet, but there is a very small demand for egg lathes and an even smaller demand for the plans on how to make one.

 

I dropped into a large craft store today called Michaels. Michaels has successfully put most of the other small craft stores out of business over the past few years. There are still some art supply stores, beading and scrap booking stores around, but I suspect that if people who run Michaels have their say, they won’t be around much longer. You can also get a lot of this stuff online. I thought I would go into Michaels and see what an egg lathe looks like so that I might try to copy the design.

 

I hadn’t been in the store more than a minute when a woman came up to me and asked if she could help me in any way. Rather than get into a complicated explanation of what I wanted, I just asked her where in the store they would keep egg dyes. “Well, in the main aisle, but only just before Easter.” Oh…

“Would you by any chance carry something called an egg lathe?” I asked and as the words left my mouth I saw a look of befuddlement cross her face. “No, I guess not. Well thanks anyways.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” I didn’t bother mentioning that she really didn’t help me with the first thing, but since she was there and obviously wanted to help someone, I asked her where they would keep leather dyes. You see, I have made a belt out some leather I have and the colour is a cross between cat vomit and a really sick cat’s vomit. That look of befuddlement once again crossed the salesladies face and she said that they carried fabric dyes but not leather dye. She said their leather supplies were directly across the store. She told me that if I were interested in leather, I might want to try Tandy Leather Company. No shit! The funny thing is that she helped me best by telling me to leave the store and go somewhere else.

I wandered over to the other side of the store, knowing that it was a wasted trip, but why not. They were very nice leather shoe laces and the 9” X 9” squares of leather might have some use for someone, but not me. I just thought that in a store with about 50,000 square feet of floor space they would have pretty much anything and everything. To be truthful, they do have a lot of interesting things, just not things that interested me today. I suppose that I will have to make do without an egg lathe, or I will have to make my own by trial and error.

I can probably get the same effect if I use an empty toilet paper roll. They will probably look like shit anyways.