Given that I just wanted something appropriate to display the autumn theme, the field was pretty open for what to use as a subject. Under consideration were a turned vessel, various designs of constructed or turned boxes, a cup, etc. I did some CAD sketches and even went so far as to make some wooden prototypes to see how things looked in real life. I did want to avoid something purely decorative (i.e. useless) and finally settled on a potpourri container. It is, to paraphrase Douglas Adams; something almost, but not quite, completely useless.

A trip the the shed produced this half-log of Manitoba Maple. The other half had already been used for a couple other turning projects.

The log had been seasoning in the shed for a bit over three years and now seemed to be nicely dry. I didn't detect any excess moisture when it was cut or turned.

The log had originally been divided in half using a chain saw; hence the rather crudely cut face in the previous photo. Fortunately it was now small enough to go through the band saw where a few cuts produced an appropriately-sized piece for the turning.

The log-length piece was longer than was needed so I sliced off about 4 inches before adding the faceplate and mounting it to the lathe. The turning technique is similar to what I've used in the past;

• Round
• Cut reference-depth slots
• Remove excess wood between the slots
• Smooth and sand

My usual practise for hollowing is to start by drilling a hole of the correct depth. In the left photo that depth is indicated by the position of the masking tape on the twist drill. I then switched to a larger Forstner bit to remove a bit more wood before breaking out the hollowing jig.

I employed my usual captured hollowing jig to clean out the inside. Here the vessel mouth is shaped and I'm working my way deeper into the body.

This was a pretty easy vessel to hollow since it had a fairly wide mouth and wasn't very deep. I didn't even crack it while hollowing, a statement I don't get to say as often as I'd hope.

Once the inside was shaped, it was sanded to remove tool marks and irregularities. I started with sanding jigs but it was so shallow a vessel that I could reach all the way in with a finger so I taped sandpaper to my leather-gloved finger and did just that.

And except for the bottom, that's it for the turning.

I'll need to separate the body from the big disc of wood that is screwed to the blue faceplate and then shape the base.

The vessel was cut off the wood disc using the band saw.

I decided that the leftover disc would make a fine jam chuck so here I'm cutting a slot into it that fits the vessel top.

As usual, I added a center brace to the jam chuck that supports the base of the vessel.

Here I'm checking the fit to make sure the top fits tightly while the brace inside just touches the bottom.

I left about an inch of extra wood on the bottom. That keeps the tailstock live center (the black spinny thing in this shot) far enough back that I can work on the bottom and get close to the middle.

I mostly used scrapers to form the round foot and remove excess wood in the middle section.

That's the base shaping done. I left the bottom with about 1/4" depth of wood - a bit thicker than the walls which are closer to 0.2".

The conical nub was cut off with a hand saw and then the remains were sanded flush using a rotary tool. And that finished off the container base turning.

Now on to the lid.

I used one of the log cut-offs to make a blank for the lid (AKA cover). The grain was oriented to go across the width of the lid to give it decent strength.

A bit of work with the band saw got me to this octagon with an integral square shaft that could be held by a 4-jaw chuck in the lathe.

All chucked up and ready to turn.

The wood shaft is attached to what will be the top of the lid so this exposed face is the underside.

The first step was rounding the blank and getting it down to the correct lid diameter.

After the rounding, I continued by forming a shallow ring destined to fit into a matching groove in the top of the vessel base.

Once the underside of the lid was turned I started on the top side and here I've done about as much as I can while leaving it attached at the center.

As shown above, I was able to shape most of the top side except for a small bit in the center.

I then cut the lid free and used some large rubber-lined jaws to hold the periphery of the lid while I smoothed the surface with this scraper.

I wanted the center of the top to be fairly thin since it will be perforated with the ventilation holes. I might have preferred closer to 0.08" but this 0.11" ended up looking fine, so I can't complain.

This is the "lovers of the simple" version. However since the main purpose of this container is to hold up some decoration, the simple will be escorted out of the building.

As mentioned above, I try to have something interesting on the bottom of a turned vessel. I had decided on some little green vines for this one and finalized the design and technique with the test board. So then it was on to the real thing. The first step after adding the initial circle was to varnish the bottom as the guard coat (to prevent the pen dye from going outside the design). When that was dry, I drew on the vines and got carving.

OK, more of a summer motif than autumn, but maybe they change late?

The whole container was going to need the guard coat so once the bottom was done, both inside and outside got a coat of varnish.

The cover had not had any work done past the shaping on the lathe, so I thought I should catch it up to the container base while the latter's varnish dried.

Being a potpourri container, it was going to need a ventilated cover to let the aromas emanate from inside.

And obviously the perforations were going to be leaf-based - it was just a matter of figuring out the exact design. Armed with a selection of candidate leaf shapes, I tried out a few patterns on paper to see how they looked.

I ended up settling on the pattern at the top of the sheet I was working on in this shot.

A thin disc isn't very clampable so I needed a way to hold it to expose the center section. To do that I turned a quickie grooved jig that let me mount it securely in the bench vise while leaving the center exposed. Those business card pieces help limit the amount of "squeeze" on the cover.

The pattern was drawn on by hand and each perforation-to-be was drilled to provide blade access for the small jig saw. Then as seen here, the bulk of each leaf shape was cut out.

The saw cuts were pretty coarse on the tiny scale of these leaves, so the perforation outlines were smoothed using needle files.

The last step was to round over the edges of the perforations which was accomplished using narrow strips of 220 grit sandpaper.

Ventilation complete.

Once done, I added a guard coat of varnish to the cover as it will receive similar inscribed leaf shapes to the base.

OK then - back to the container base. The varnish used as a guard coat was dry so I could proceed to add the leaf shapes.

I thought a bit about potential leaf patterns but resisted my own urges toward regular organizations, opting for a random-ish arrangement of leaves.

With that decided, I could just start drawing on various leaf shapes in various sizes at various orientations and in various locations.

...and then carving the outlines.

The carving was done in the bench vise with the bottom of the vessel squeezed by a dowel. The large wood disc on the left prevents any marring of the design on the bottom.

I wore the magnifying headset to get a more-detailed view of the carving.

A Poplar leaf outline-ing in progress.

I used this 90° V-tool to outline the leaves. It was kept sharp by honing it periodically on a motorized leather belt.

When the cutting was done on all the outlines, I switched to the sanding phase.

While I didn't need to completely remove the varnish, the surface inside the leaves had to be porous enough to let the wood absorb the dye from the pens. I mostly used 220 grit on small sanding jigs like this one.

And then it was time for the color. I exclusively used fine felt pens like this one to trace the carved outline and then fill in the interior of each leaf.

I started with the set of 10 pens on the left. There were really only four or so valid autumn colors so I figured I could use a bit more variety and picked up the 42-pen set on the right.

Surprisingly that only added a few more decent colors (the fluorescent pink and purples and all the browns, blues and black not being very convincing autumn leaf colors). However I did some color mixing to give a bit more variety.

Once the body was done, I moved over to the cover. I had previously added a coat of guard varnish so I proceeded to draw on the leaves, carve the outlines, sand the leaves and finally color them in.

Container woodworking done.

Now of course the question arises of exactly how many leaves are on the container. I figured that would be tough to figure out so through the magic of copyright violation, I invoked everybody's favourite Count. I then asked "How many coloured leaves are on the container and lid?"

After a bunch of faffing around and singing a juvenile song, he finally came back with "Ninety-seven wonderful leaves - Ah hahaha". So now we know.

The colored container still needed the usual final coats of varnish so I started in on that.

The first coat of varnish on the pieces is still wet in this photo. I used my usual Minwax Fast-Dry Poly (the same as I ended up using for the guard coats) and added three coats with the usual steel-wool treatment between them.