FASCINATING HOBBY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20669, 6 March 1937, Page 20 (Supplement)

FASCINATING HOBBY

CARPENTRY FOR WOMEN Carpentry has long been considered a male monopoly, yet, if you come to think of it, it is an art at which women should excel. It requires neat fingers, infinite patience, and a capacity for taking pains (writes Elizabeth Fairholme in the “Daily Mail”). Many women find no pleasure tn sewing. They are not painters, writers, or musicians, yet they long for some creative outlet. Such women wou'd find real interest in carpentry and woodwork. At a preliminary, it is well before going on to more involved work with hammer, chisel, and saw to start mal - ing simple wooden objects with a fretsaw. Fretwork is the initiatory stage through which most amateur carpenters have graduated. A hand fretsaw outfit costs only a shilling or two, but, if you can afford it, a guinea treadle fretsaw is easier to use and quickest and better in every way in its results. A few pence will purchase sufficient ply-wood to keep you busy for some time. First you must learn to handle your saw with dexterity. For this the best possible practice is to make a jig-saw puzzle. Choose an attractive coloured plate from a magazine, gum this to a piece of ply-wood. Start by trimming the edges, so that no wood shows outside the picture. Then cut it into as many baffling and entertaining shapes as your fancy dictates. Jig-saws are only one of the dozens of things you could make with a fretsaw. Special handbooks can be purchased crammed with ideas, but if you are of an original turn of mind you will have even more fun making up your own ideas. You could invent out-of-the-ordinary toys that would startle even the most blase child into appreciation. (Wheels, incidentally, can be bought ready made cut in all sizes--a boon, since a perfect circle is not an easy proposition for the beginner). Doll’s houses are enormous fun to make and furnish in fretwork, particularly if modelled on your own house, or one you would love to possess. Decorative silhouettes cut out of plywood, coloured and tackled to doors, wardrobes, friezes, etc., make a nursery or bathroom very gay.