Stitching up sycamore? Yep, that's what I did on this one. Of all the different types of wood I have turned into bowls and vases, sycamore seems to me to be one of the most difficult to get dried to a stable moisture content without a crack or split popping up somewhere. I've started some sycamore bowls that would have been 8 inches tall, but was eventually whittled down to a nice platter because of this. So with this piece I decided not to try to hide or cover up this crack, but instead to embellish it with leather stitches. The stitches have no structural function on this 6.25 inch diameter bowl and one would not want to try to eat a bowl of cereal out of it. Though I've patched and hidden these before, I thought to myself this crack is what the wood wanted to do in its natural state and who am I to try to override one of creations natural occurrences.
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