Happy Mother’s Day to All Woodworking Moms (and Moms of Woodworkers)

A spice box I made for my mom a few years ago. (And no, she’s not picking a paint color for it – that’s for the wall below the chair rail – I like the bottom red, because it matches the inlay.)

While my mother isn’t a woodworker, I do have her to thank for my love of the craft. She collects antique furniture, and started doing so back when such things were more affordable and easy to find at yard sales. I also appreciate fine furniture, which I can only assume is a result of the furniture in my childhood home I wasn’t supposed to touch! But I can’t afford it unless I make it myself – so I have my mom to thank for my expensive furniture tastes. And her father, Emmett, was a woodworker – he trained as a cabinetmaker as a young man, then took it up again as a hobby after World War II. The sawdust in my veins comes from her side of my gene pool.

So happy Mother’s Day to my mom, Penny, and to all the other moms reading this.  And to every woodworking mom among our readers: I hope you get some nice bling today – a shiny new handplane, perhaps, or a nice set of sparkling clean (and clean-cutting) carbide router bits. At the very least, I hope you get some quality time in the shop.

— Megan Fitzpatrick