My friend Erin at Red Cottage Fiber Studio sent me some photos of a well used (and slightly misused) darning ball for mending fabric that she found at a yard sale. Looks like it was made from a piece of oak.

I had a chunk of cherry from their property sitting in my shop, so I decided to make one of similar size and shape as a gift.

The process:

• Mill the chunk of wood down into square stock on the bandsaw
• Rough the square stock round with a roughing gouge
• Remove the excess around the handle with a bedan
• Shape ball and handle with a large spindle gouge
• Shape the ball to handle transition with the spindle gouge
• Sand with 80 – 120 – 220 – 400
• Cut the bands on the handle with a skew, then burn them in with guitar wire
• Finish with Tried and True Original