Carving The Uncommon Bottlestopper

CARVING THE UNCOMMON BOTTLESTOPPER By Ayleen Stellhorn
WARNING - THESE PROJECTS ARE SUCH QUICK AND EASY FUN - YOU’LL HAVE A HARD TIME “STOPPING” We thought you might like to explore the carving possibilities of the common botle stopper as we are literally go coast to coast. Our first stoip is at the California Carvers Guild’s well-known Cholula Whittle-Off. Next - check out the competition from the Northern Virginia Wood Carvers. Finally, we’ll end up with five neat patterns from Dogpatch’s own Harold Enlow. When you’re finished, you’ll see that there’s no such thing as a “typical” stopper. - Editors
Give a carver a bottle of hot sauce and you’ll stimulate not only his taste buds, but also get his creative juices flowing. Take Don Elmore for example. For three years running, he has turned
Take Don Elmore for example. For three years running, he has turned the wooden stopper on a bottle of Cholula Hot Sauce into a first place wood carving. But is it really the hot sauce that got him fired up enough to win top honors three years in a row? “No,” chuckles Don. “ I like hot sauce... and Cholula is really good. But no, it’s the challenge of the contest that gets me going.” The contest, officially dubbed the Cholula Whittle-Off, is just one of the many events held each year at the California Carvers Guild’s annual carving competition. Held this past year on September 11, the Whittle-Off drew more than 30 carvers, mostly CCG members, to the Hamlet at Moonstone Gardens in Cambria, California. Each carver was given a 4" x 2" x 2" basswood egg with the bottom leveled off and one hour and 45 minutes to	Each year, the California Carvers Guild holds the Cholula Whittle-Off in conjunction with the club’s annual show. Contestants are given 1 hour and 45 minuets to whittle the basswood bottle stoppers into ribbon-winning carvings.
come up with a winning carving. Don used about an hour and 35 minutes to carve the face in his stopper, and then spent the last 10 minutes cleaning up the cuts. “In a timed contest like this one, I like to carve the eyes and nose and mouth first,” Don says. “That’s the main thing the judges look at. The hair and the ears and such are important, but they can go by the wayside if need be. That way, if I don’t have enough time to really make the rest of the carving exactly the way I want it, I still have a good chance at winning because the face is good.” Don turned the idea for the face on the bottle stopper over and over in his mind for several months before the contest. But in fairness to the other carvers, he never sketched out a pattern for the face or made a practice carving.