I started with a clear image, bronze and copper running down a tall form with rust underneath, as if it had been left out for twenty years and then brought in by someone who liked it too much to throw away.

Sanding is the job most woodturners do more of than they need to, and almost always for the same reason: the surface coming off the tool isn't as clean as it could be.

Some pieces of wood arrive in the workshop and tell you, quietly, that they aren't ready yet. This mallee burr was one of them. It sat for years, all its tiny fissures and cracks waiting, while I waited too, for the project that deserved it.

Why do I keep getting spiral marks on my spindle turning? Nine times out of ten it comes down to leaning into the bevel instead of keeping the tool moving in a straight line. In this Workshop Extras I show you exactly what causes those horrible spiral rub marks and the small changes that get rid of them for good.

There is a new film up, and it is a rare one for me. A gallery in Farnham ordered three bowls, and an order for multiples pulls against every instinct I have, because I would far rather follow an idea than repeat one. That tension is really what the film is about.

Hollowing teaches you to trust what you can't see. In bowl turning, everything is visible. The form emerges before your eyes, and you can check your work at any moment by simply looking. Hollowing is different. The interior is hidden, accessible only through a small opening. You're cutting blind, relying on feel, sound, and measurement to know what's happening inside.

Standing in front of a tool rack for the first time is a peculiar sort of paralysis. Dozens of shapes, most of them expensive, and very little to tell you which ones you will actually reach for.

When our dog Digby died after twelve years, I wanted to make something worthy of him. This film follows that project: a lidded memorial urn, turned from sycamore with a lid of newtonia, coloured with the Intrinsic Colour range and finished in polished satin lacquer.

There are two things happening on this channel, and they work quite differently. One is slow and considered, running to around twelve or fifteen minutes. The other is short and direct, rarely more than a couple. Here's what each one is, and why I make them the way I do.

Black palm isn't really a wood at all. Botanically it's closer to grass than to a hardwood tree, and it behaves completely differently on the lathe because of it.

It's rarely the successful piece that moves you forward. The bowl that turned out exactly as planned is satisfying, yes. Worth making, absolutely. But what did it teach? It confirmed what you already knew. It proved you could repeat a process. That has value, but it's not where growth lives.

A Mallee burr from Australia is about as dramatic as anything you can put on the lathe. Dense, knotted, full of character in a way British hardwoods rarely manage.

In an episode of Turner's Journey a while back, I told you I'd stopped making YouTube videos. I was quite definite about it, as I recall. So if you've come here expecting consistency from me, this might be the moment to look away.

Here's something that surprised me when I started teaching: I feel I got better at turning not despite the time spent teaching, but because of it.

There was a piece of ash on my bench that most people would have thrown on the fire. Too small to be useful for anything grand, too honest to bin. That's exactly the sort of wood I like to start beginners on, and it's the wood in this video.

I've been sitting on this one for a while, and I'm thrilled to finally say it out loud: some of the most-loved products from the old Hampshire Sheen range are back. The Danish Oil, the Cellulose Sanding Sealer and the full Intrinsic Colour Collection have all returned, now made under my own name, and they're every bit as good as you remember.

Every piece of wood carries a history you can read if you know how to look. The tight growth rings from a harsh year when rain was scarce. The wide bands from a season of abundance.

There's a moment in every turner's development when the tool collection starts growing faster than the skills to use them. I've been there. Most of us have.

Emma Cook arrives at The Woodturning School next month, and I've been thinking about what makes her work resonate so strongly with people who see it.