Revenge of the Carving Pixie

Lindy · #1 08-06-2007, 02:18 AM

Well, there I was, ready to start to do some carving again after a fairly long hiatus while woodburning. Working with a really nice piece of butternut on a toothpick holder, how hard can this be? Yes new design, want to try out some stuff, but heck, I've done these many times and it's a good warm-up. So there I am, shaping a leaf on the top of the piece when the carving pixie jumps out, moves the unprotected index finger into the path of the spoon gouge, distracts me just long enough for the gouge to slip. So my stupid index finger, which I might mention has never been cut before required 5 stitches to close the flap and I feel like a total idiot. Just so everyone knows, I am currently hunting that little pixie for some payback, and as soon as I find her, I'll capture her into a woodburning so once my finger is back to being usable I can carve without worrying. It really is a Nice piece of butternut and I was trying to carve a greenman toothpick holder with oak leaves for hair, chestnuts for a crown, and well stuff which when it is finished will be left natural. Of course I had planned on giving it to a gentleman friend next weekend, but I'm thinking it just might not be done.

So be warned those of us that went to do the dark side and became pyrographers as well, that Carving Pixie is a vengeful creature. *G*

At least when I finish the piece my DNA will always make it identifiable as something I did.

Linda
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tnartist05 · #2 08-06-2007, 06:13 AM

With the great work you create with your wood burnings,Id just burn that pixie! Hope your finger gets better soon! Tn

Treever · #3 08-06-2007, 01:31 PM

If your pixie looks like mine, it's a fat little bald cherub smoking a cigar, sitting on my shoulder who grunts, "you can't do that...you're not good enough...stick to something like crayons."

If you find him, put him in a jar...and don't poke any air holes in the lid.

susieq · #4 08-06-2007, 08:27 PM

Darn Lindy,
That pixie sure gets around! Evil little spirit that she is...... she just likes the color red....
susieq

Eddy Smiles · #5 08-06-2007, 10:14 PM

Like an old boss that I once worked for used to say.... if you ain't getting hurt, you ain't working! I guess the same applies to carving. That must be the carving Pixies motto too!

We've all been visited by her. It don't seem like you can ever protect everything. Leave once square inch of bare skin exposed and she'll bite ya! I wonder if that's why the Medieval Nights used to dress from head to tow in armor.... might be a lesson there!

Thomp · #6 08-07-2007, 04:00 AM

Linda,

sorry to hear you got hurt,
you stabbed yourself right through a glove?
them fictional caricatures are dangerious..... but so dang cute..

did you get some free whimp wrap while you got your finger stiched?

i make um give me a roll, heck you got to get something for the $300.00 emergency room bill.... beside a i told you so, or a lesson learned.

Lindy · #7 08-07-2007, 12:41 PM

Thanks guys, it was a great lesson to remember gloves! I had the carving hand protected but not the other one.

Thomp - Fortunately I live in Canada where we have universal health insurance to cover all necessary health care so I didn't have to pay in dollars, just humility, ego and facing down those needles they like poking in you. I can face down bullies, snakes, big sharp carving instruments and power equipment. I can make my 1200 lb horse listen and ride him through his private rodeo. Even mice don't bother me, but needles and spiders turn me into a complete whimp.

So lesson learned - again - and once I can carve again there will be gloves on that hand.

On a positive side I have another pyrography class starting at Lee Valley this Friday which has a bunch of my carving students in it, so I can use this as an example of what not to do.

susieq · #8 08-07-2007, 03:59 PM

Re: Needles and spiders....

Lindy, it sounds as though we are sisters, separated at birth. I have always played with snakes and lizards, used to ride a lot and am a full blown tomboy.
But needles aimed at me, or spiders, just make my skin crawl. The spiders we have in Florida are arachnids on steriods.....
susieq

Eddy Smiles · #9 08-07-2007, 04:43 PM

SusieQ....

As you know I live just down the road from you but I can tell you in no uncertain terms that our spiders are nothing compared to the spiders they have in Japan. Them old "Benjo Spiders" look to be a mutant cross between a tarantula and an alley rat! My wife had one in our house one day and she beat on it with a broom and tried to drown it in a pool of bug spray. When I got home that evening the darn thing was still swimming around in a pool of spray out on the front stoop where she had thrown it. The next morning it was gone.... Supernatural!

susieq · #10 08-07-2007, 10:26 PM

I have no doubt of your story, Eddy.
I watch the nature shows and when they are talking about spiders in exotic places, I can't even watch.

I never used to be bothered by them as a child. I even played with them. We moved to Florida when I was a teenager.....back in the 60's. One Sunday I got dressed and went to church with my dad. As we arrived at the church, my dad noticed what I was wearing and was just horrified. I had put on what I considered to be my best dress....it was a mini dress though. He told me I couldn't go into church dressed like that so I waited in the car....in the summer.....in Florida. We hadn't been here long so I wasn't familiar with the flora and fauna yet. As I sat in the sweltering car, I noticed some bright colored flowers growing in amongst a stand of pines in the rear of the church and decided to go have a look.

The flowers were on shrubs growing thickly in and around this stand of 4 or 5 pines. I was bent over looking at the pretty flowers. Each bloom was actually a group of tiny individual flowers of different colors....yellow, purple, peach....really pretty. After a few minutes of looking at each shrub, I stood up and not 6 inches from my face was a huge spider on a web 4 feet across, strung between two of the pines. I didn't dare scream and embarrass my dad in church. I turned around to run the other way and dear lord! There was another one, and another.... every direction I turned, there was a web blocking my way with a huge, spikey, bright black and yellow banded spider, the likes of which I had never seen before.

I was in a panick. I couldn't for the life of me see how I got in there without running into a web in the first place. I realized that while I was bent over, looking at those flowers I must have walked right under them. I was in a mini dress and hose but I still dropped down on my hands and knees and crawled out of there as fast as I could.....through those shrubs which turned out to have prickers all over them.... I found out later that the shrub is a native plant here called lantana. I also found out later that those big spikey spiders are commonly called banana spiders but their proper name is golden globe spider or something like that. I climbed back in our car and waited for dad to come out of the church, figuring that the spiders were God punishing me for wearing a min dress to church....I was 14 years old.

I have been terrified of spiders ever since. The worst thing about is that those spiders are not the largest or scariest spiders I have seen here and they are as large as my hand. Sweet dreams....
susieq