TURNING Yarn bowl
86 The Woodworker & Good Woodworking August 2019 http://www.getwoodworking.com
Perfect for the knitting enthusiast in your life,
Les Thorne shares his take on a yarn bowl design in air-dried ashIn all my years of turning I hadn’t come across a yarn bowl until about five years
ago when my good friend and fellow production turner, Gary Rance, told me that
he’d been commissioned to make some. Then about a month ago, I got a phone
call from a guy who wanted to come on a course to make a yarn bowl for his
daughter, so I thought it’d be a good idea to share what we learnt on that day.
Yarn bowls are often ceramic and come in a variety of sizes with the 150 ×
80mm size being popular for a single ball of wool with a bigger version like the
one I am making here suited to multiple balls. I researched designs online and
there seemed to be many, with the slot from a simple groove to an ornate
scroll. The other design feature that some of them had was a couple of drilled
holes for the needles to fit in, but we decided to omit that part. For this project,
you need to ensure you achieve an even wall thickness and the style of bowl
also requires an undercut rim – all design features that can be added to your
future fruit, salad and decorative bowls.SPINNING A YARN