The Storyteller's Tavern

For our first story, we had the pleasure of sitting down once again with the incredible Jimmy DiResta and, for the first time, the talented Derek from Malden.

Jimmy’s influence on the Maker Community is nothing short of legendary. His dedication and passion have shaped the culture and inspired countless people to create and grow.

Derek, a craftsman and content creator, is known for his beautifully crafted furniture, signs, and other handmade treasures.

Both of them are part of the team behind the Netflix series Making Fun, and it’s clear from their dynamic that their friendship is as genuine as it is entertaining.

We recorded our conversation upstairs in Jimmy's Leather Shop, which at the time, had just been sided and was still a huge, beautiful, open space - you can hear just how big it is in the recording. You can even hear the Total Boat crew sneak in and say hi at one point.

We talk about How a Drunken Afternoon Sparked a Maker Movement, Trash to Cash and the Power of Friendship, and The Case for Welding Over College.

There is a minor hiccup in the middle of the episode where I had to splice two tracks together. Hopefully, it’s seamless enough that it doesn’t take away from your experience.

Just as a heads up: there are some swears in this episode.

More Jimmy

More Derek

We had some tremendously generous support in making this Chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern possible, and we'd like to thank Total Boat, Kutzall, The Tasting Lab, and The Maker Camp

The Storyteller's Tavern is made and hosted by @TheTinkerTeacher and @MakerMush. Please consider subscribing, reviewing, and rating. We welcome your support on Patreon.

Leigh and Mush sit down to talk about what they're most excited for for this year's Maker Camp, reflect on Maker Camps of years past, and share their love for the Maker community at large. This is a great episode for newbies or those who were on the fence about attending this year. Can't wait to see everyone soon!

WORKBENCHCon weekend, as with all weekends, had to eventually draw to a close, but Leigh and I were so fortunate to be able to get to sit down with Xyla Foxlin, who has (among other fantastic things) created a YouTube channel to showcase her love of engineering challenges, problem solving, and teaching. The three of us got a chance to talk more about Xyla's move from making strictly educational tutorials borrowing friends' proverbial hats; the value of learning from your peers and community; and the importance of representation and role models in STEM fields, or put another way, the burden and blessing of becoming a superhero.

Episode Trivia Minigam! Can you name the actors who played Dr. Dana Scully, Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan, and Angela Montenegro?

Notable Quotes:

More Xyla:

We had some tremendously generous support in making this Chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern possible, and we'd like to thank Kutzall, Total Boat, and WorkbenchCON

The Storyteller's Tavern is made and hosted by @TheTinkerTeacher and @MakerMush. Please consider subscribing, reviewing, and rating. We welcome your support on Patreon.

There are some faces you see when you go to a Maker Event as a newbie and you just know are the ones who will welcome you in. Alma of Pink Soul Studios and Steph of Uncommon Outpost are two of those people who we had seen all over the place but had never gotten the pleasure and privilege of getting to know - until this year's WORKBENCHCon. Leigh and Mush got to sit down with them and catch up on their take on the magic and the purpose of WORKBENCHCon from their roles as advisory board members. As Leigh puts it in this episode: "if somebody wants to know why they should come to workbench con, they should just listen to this episode."

We weren't able to do our regular intro in this episode, as we were talking a mile a minute pretty much as soon as we sat down. We found a good place to fade in on our conversation, so we jumped in from there!

We had some tremendously generous support in making this Chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern possible, and we'd like to thank Kutzall, Total Boat, and WorkbenchCON

The Storyteller's Tavern is made and hosted by @TheTinkerTeacher and @MakerMush. Please consider subscribing, reviewing, and rating. We welcome your support on Patreon.

Tom Bodett (@tombodett1123), an iconic voice and beloved spokesperson, is a treasured figure in American culture, and woodworker of thirty plus years. Leigh and Mush had a wonderful experience of learning more about Tom, his history, and how he's ended up serving the community of Brattleboro, Vermont by co-founding Hatchspace (@hatchspacevt), plus how he came to be hitchhiking to and living in Alaska, as well as how hands-on making serves kids and adults alike.

More Tom

We had some tremendously generous support in making this Chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern possible, and we'd like to thank Kutzall, Total Boat, and WorkbenchCON

The Storyteller's Tavern is made and hosted by @TheTinkerTeacher and @MakerMush. Please consider subscribing, reviewing, and rating. We welcome your support on Patreon.

Hadeel and Firas from Four Rivers Studio are a husband and wife duo based out of Chicago's west suburbs. By day, Firas is a historian and Hadeel is a nurse, and together they started a woodworking business out of their garage.

Leigh and Mush talked with them right before they presented their second session at WORKBENCHcon this year, and got a chance to speak about empowering diversity in Makerspaces; ways that they infuse past intellectual traditions with contemporary craft; and the overlap between academia, nursing, and woodworking.

If you're listening to this close to when it was released, Hadeel and Firas just had the baby that gets mentioned in this episode - congratulations!

More Four Rivers Studio

We had some tremendously generous support in making this Chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern possible, and we'd like to thank Kutzall, Total Boat, and WorkbenchCON

The Storyteller's Tavern is made and hosted by @TheTinkerTeacher and @MakerMush. Please consider subscribing, reviewing, and rating. We welcome your support on Patreon.

JPaulTheCarpenter (@JPaulTheCarpenter) is a singer/songwriter turned builder, raised in the hustling streets of Dallas TX, who then moved to the creative hub of ATL.

Leigh and Mush talked with JPaul at WORKBENCHcon (@workbenchconference) about his journey from working on military aircraft to getting nominated for Grammys; the mentors who first believed in and thereby empowered him, and how that guides what he does today; and about focusing the power of the Maker Community into a Swarm of positive impact.

More JPaulTheCarpenter:

Mike Marazzo, or MarazzoWoodworking, is an avid DIY-er and woodworker, often specializing in custom wood flags based out of Elgin, IL. Brandon Silveira, aka Full House Woodworking, is a maker based in Hollister, CA. Both Mike and Brandon are police officers, Mike having recently retired, and together they host the Handcuffs and Sawdust podcast.

Leigh and I sat down with them both, kicking off WorkbenchCON by highlighting the reunion of the Maker Family, overcoming imposter syndrome, and some of the influence our parents had on us.

More Mike

More Brandon

Handcuffs & Sawdust

We had some tremendously generous support in making this Chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern possible, and we'd like to thank Kutzall, Total Boat, and WorkbenchCON.

The Storyteller's Tavern is made and hosted by Leigh Northrup (@TheTinkerTeacher) and Mush Hughes (@MakerMush). Please consider subscribing, reviewing, and rating. We welcome your support on Patreon.

Eric Schimelphenig (@ericschimel) has an intense passion for digital fabrication and Making. He uses and teaches 3D printing and CNC fabrication, and has helped design and build digitally fabricated homes, geodesic domes, and many other cutting edge projects. Eric is a regular columnist for Kitchen & Bath Design News and MAKE Magazine, teaches Sketchup nationally, and speaks on emerging technologies for the design field. As he'd probably summarize it himself: he's a big ol' digital fabriaction maker nerd, and proud of it.

At Maker Camp, he was helping man the Avid CNC (@avidcnc) booth, and took time at the end of the weekend to close out Maker Camp '23 with Leigh by talking about the bedrock of collaboration in the community, the trust and respect inherent to these sorts of gatherings, and a brief but intense recap of the '23 Total Boat Makeregatta.

More Eric

We had some tremendously generous support in making this Chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern possible, and we'd like to thank Total Boat, Blackthorne Resort and Maker Camp, and The Tasting Lab for making it all happen.

This chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern is hosted by Leigh Northrup and Leah Hartmann, and produced by Mush Hughes. You can support the show directly on Patreon.

Brooke and Michael, from Maker's Workshop, got their start via a serendipitous confluence of artistic burnout and budding makerspace potential. Based just outside of Boston, they run the Maker's Workshop, both as a physical shop, and as the name of their presences online.

Patrick Gensel (@patrickgensel), from Pennsylvania, will tell you that he is a "maker of things," which can clearly be seen through the items he sells on Etsy as Pine and Print. From there, he began sharing his process on Instagram, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The group talks at length the crossroads of tradition and technology, whether that’s by what’s involved in creating their own maker spaces, 3D printing your own nostalgia and turning your projects loose on the world, or CNCing gingerbread.

Just a heads up: there’s a surprise appearance by Red the Shop Dog (@redtheshopdog) via some barking right around the ten minute mark.

Maker's Workshop

Patrick Gensel

We had some tremendously generous support in making this Chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern possible, and we'd like to thank Total Boat, Blackthorne Resort and Maker Camp, and The Tasting Lab for making it all happen.

This chapter of The Storyteller's Tavern is hosted by Leigh Northrup and Leah Hartmann, and produced by Mush Hughes. You can support the show directly on Patreon.