Round bowls are very forgiving, but once you move into shapes with tighter curves, you have to be sure that you can sand the lowest ring. After I lost my first blank because of the lopsided pattern, I had to reduce the size of the pattern for the next attempt by 1/2" so it would fit the wood I had. I forgot that the effect on the bottom edge of the lowest ring was likely to be dramatic.
Sure enough, even with my little round inflatable, there was no way I could sand the lower edge into a rounded shape and still have enough wood left to glue on the base. I gave it my best shot, but sometimes you just have to give up. These are views of what the top and bottom of the lower ring looked like, before I realized that it just wouldn't work.
I solved the problem by re-cutting the lower rings at a slightly smaller angle, which gave me more room to maneuver. For the next petal bowl, I'm going back to my full-sized pattern. Should make the sanding a lot simpler!
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