Driftless Spoon Gathering

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I've been in the United States for about two months now, and am having a great time here. While my visa is being processed I am unable to work, so my time is currently being spent walking the dog and carving spoons.

Charlie helping with gardening

Silver maple ladle

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On Friday the 17th of July I quit my job at Keep Britain Tidy and on the Monday I flew to Madison, Wisconsin. The lead up to the move and the past month were both very busy, so there wasn't much time for carving. 

Near the Capitol building

Madison, Wisconsin

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I've just moved to Madison, Wisconsin. I've been here in the States for almost two weeks now, enjoying getting to know the city a little more.

Packing up my life from England was a little stressful, but I think I had my priorities right when deciding on what to bring!

I've also been quick to mark my territory in the cutlery drawer. 

Along with some of my own spoons there are spoons I own from some great craftspeople back on the other side of the Atlantic. Here's my collection laid out. Clockwise from the top we have a Barn the Spoon, a Jane Mickelborough, a Jojo Wood, a Sean Hellman, a Tom Standen, a Simon Hill, a Chris Allen and a Steve Tomlin.

I also shipped over a collection of some of my own spoons. Really looking forward to adding to these soon. 

Variations

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I opened up a cherry log. It really useful to make a couple of wooden wedges before starting the split. The wedges help split the log, and won't damage the axe if they come into contact.

I split the log into ten sections, ready to be turned into ten cooking spoons. 

By the end of the morning I had ten spoons roughed out. 

I used my adze to help speed up hollowing he bowls out. 

The twca cam also quickly removes wood from the bowl, and I find it easier to get a smooth finish.

I've got five pretty much finished, with a few minor refinements still needed. I am really surprised with the variation in colour between the spoons, especially as they're all from the same log. 

Oak burr

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I was digging through my wood pile and found some oak burrs that are about a year old. I'd completely forgotten about them. The swirling grain is amazing, so I thought I'd make as many tiny spoons out of it as I could. So far I've managed six.

Cherry off cuts

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I've been using a lot of cherry recently, and I'm really enjoying the colours that emerge from it. I wanted to do a small production run. I asked people that follow my Facebook and Instagram to pick from one of my designs and this is what they chose:  

Spoon carving video

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Spent some of my Easter weekend playing around with a video camera and iMovie. Hope you like it, if you do I might upload some instructional videos in the near future. 

Testing to Destruction

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For a while now I've wondered what stress a wooden spoon can take. I've had a spoon in my unfinished pile that I wasn't very happy with, so rather than making the small finishing touches, I thought I'd put heavier and heavier weights on it until it breaks!

Now this is a highly unscientific experiment, but a fun, illustrative one. I wasn't controlling for much, and the results are from a group size of one, but it did answer some questions for me.

Essex Wildlife Trust Woodland Management Day

Through the volunteering I do for the Essex Wildlife Trust , I ended up being invited along to their Woodland Management Day at Belfair's Woodland Centre. I'd quote forgotten about it until the email reminder I received on Tuesday saying they were looking forward to seeing me on Sunday. 

Last week was a bit of a busy one, as my day job had me traveling around the country quite a bit. It wasn't until Friday evening that I had the time to start preparing stuff for my stall.

Spoons I have lying around

Tool-roll: Mora (Frost) 106 Carving Knife

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Probably the best wood working knife out there at this price. 

London's Carving Workshops

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I recently held a couple of carving workshops in London. One near Old Street and another in Victoria Park. Both of them were great fun and they kind of surprised me with how eager people were to learn crafts.

Both of the workshops were a part of Keep Britain Tidy's Waste less, Live more Week. The week was themed 'Be Resourceful' with daily challenges. The first challenge was 'Make it' and that was where my workshops came in.

While I spend most of my time making spoons, butter spreaders are a better project to start with as they only need a knife and are less complicated objects to make.

Butter Spreaders

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When I'm not carving things or out in the woods, I'm usually found in an office in London working on Eco-Schools for the charity Keep Britain Tidy. Each year in September Keep Britain Tidy has a Waste Less Live More week. Last year the theme for the week was food and food waste. This year the week is running from 22 - 28 September and the theme is 'Be Resourceful'. 

To encourage people to be resourceful and to raise awareness that what's good for the environment is good for us, I decided to teach people how to carve wooden butter spreaders, a nice introduction to green woodworking. 

Skedfest

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Just got back from an amazing three days at Skedfest in Sweden. It was a brilliant experience, and hanging out with such an international group of spoon carvers was great. So much happened during the three days that for now I'm going to just put up my photos from the weekend.

Charcoal Marking (part 2)

Last week at the Essex Wildlife Trust's Pound Wood I helped load and light the charcoal kiln. In the evening I went back and switched around the chimneys and vents. On Wednesday morning the kiln was shut down (all the vents blocked off) and it was left to sit for a week.

Charcoal I helped produce, from cutting to cooking.

Hewing Out A Beech Bowl

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I brought home a large beech log from Spoonfest, with the intention of making some bowls from it. So after a particularly hectic week, here's the first of hopefully several bowls this log will provide.

It's a lot of fun working on a bigger project like this. I do however want to make sure I have it ready for drying by the end of the weekend, as I already have about three bowls that have dried before I've got them to where I wanted to get them. They've all been sitting untouched for a while now. Should probably get round to finishing them soon!

Here's what I managed to get done today. Hopefully I can show you the (almost) finished product tomorrow.

Took a while to saw through

Charcoal Making

While this isn't wood carving, charcoal is a cool sustainable product and making it used to be a really process widespread across the UK. It's a great way to use smaller diameter wood that it can be hard to find uses for. 

I often help out at Pound Wood, an ancient woodland that's managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust as a coppice site. A common product from coppice woodlands is charcoal. Charcoal is wood with the water removed by setting fire to it and then severely limiting the oxygen it receives. The charcoal from Pound Wood is sold locally. A fantastic British product made very sustainably.

A Spot of Decoration

Inspired by the  designs and work of Simon Hill, I decided to do a little more spoon decorating. Here I've drawn out the pattern on the spoon handle.

Rainy weekend

The weather has been rather unpredictable over the weekend. Fortunately I've managed to axe out the spoons before the weather got really bad, before retreating indoors to finish them off. All of the spoons have been carved from purple plum that was a street tree felled due to ill health. I've got a fair amount of it in my wood pile and am really liking the wavy grain and contrast between the heartwood and sapwood.

By splitting the wood radially I can display this contrast nicely. I've also been trying to get the bowls as thin as possible, something I can't really display in the photos. 

Spoonfest

A Year of Spooning

Returning for its third year, Spoonfest, an international gathering of 200 spoon carvers in Edale, a scenic village nestled in the stunning Peak District has come to an end

An adventure into Welsh dolphin spoons

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On Friday I made this spoon from a purple plum branch and shared it in a Facebook spoon carving group. I've mentioned before that the group is a great source of help and inspiration and the following spoon making journey is proof of that.