Woodworking stores provided a creative break for me during a recent road trip to visit relatives.

Walking through woodworking stores always gives me ideas for projects and usually includes purchasing a special piece of wood or a tool I need.

Rockler – The surprise was finding a Rockler store in Sharonville, OH — one of the overnight stops on the way home. After reviewing their collection of books, I selected a book on pen making. I’ve blanks ready to turn in exploring making unique wood fountain pens for use in my Urban Sketching.

Lee Valley – The Canadian store provides lots of specialized tools and many of them are unique to luthier’s (stringed instrument makers) wood use. Among my purchases was an angle-measuring tool to use in making the mouthpieces for my Shakuhachi flutes.

Woodcraft – Having visited Rockler, I felt called to visit Woodcraft to see what they offered. Even two Woodcraft or Rockler stores will carry some different wood because of the wood available in the specific  locale. This Woodcraft store had two large bins of exotic scrap wood. I selected a few thin pieces with dramatic color and grain that I’ll use to make frames for miniature watercolor images for dollhouses for Hitty dolls.

Phillmore’s – I always enjoy visiting Roy and his wife at Phillmore’s.  Roy has a huge barn filled with kiln-dried wood. Smoky, the barn cat, jumped down with her thick winter coat (it had recently snowed in April) from the stacked wood for a bit of attention and to join me in looking at the wood choices. I selected some gorgeous cherry that will become Native American-style flutes.  Roy directed my attention to a small collection of tupelo which I was delighted to bring home for carving. And of course, Roy has the best prices on basswood for carving projects.