I thought I'd share some photos of what I learned at our first meeting. I'm satisfied with the results but think I can improve.
First one I is sycamore dyed blue. It came out much darker than I wanted. The finish is pretty good but I'll work on that also.
The second one is cherry. I did this for my neighbor, since he gave me some leftovers from a remodel job. I didn't take it down far enough on the nib end of the blank so I'll probably take it apart and fix it.
The green one is also sycamore. I decided to dilute the dye 50/50. I like the color and the finish came out very good.
The red one is the one Tom gave me. It has the best finish and character.
The next ones I do I will dilute the dyes. I can always do darker. Somewhere I have some curly maple but couldn't find it so I went with sycamore. The grain is too small but it is still sort of interesting.
Comments/critiques welcome.