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.

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.

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. 

Wonky Sweet Chestnut Spoon

This came from a naturally bent branch I came across in my local woodland. After splitting out the blank I decided that the handle should follow the flow of the grain.

Plum Travel Spoons

Here are a couple of short handled eating spoons that have recently emerged from their linseed oil bath. They're loosely based on my rowan travel spoon.

Rowan travel spoon

Everybody Should Carve a Spoon

***This blog has moved to my new website. New posts will be made here***

Creating handmade, personal objects for everyday use.

We currently live in a throwaway society. The things we buy are designed to fail, the natural world is being priced up and sold off and we are forgetting traditional techniques and knowledge that might help us in the future. These issues, along with many others are having a serious negative impact on our wellbeing and on the health of the planet.

While these are all huge issues we might find difficult to address, there is a process I think we should all try to start tackling these concerns: hand carving a wooden spoon. Doing so increases our wellbeing, reconnects us with nature and teaches us useful skills that are hard to attain in modern life.¹

This post aims to look more closely at some of the problems we face and will show how the seemingly simple task of hand carving a spoon actually goes a long way towards providing solutions to those problems.

Purple plum wedding spoon

A colleague is attending a friend's wedding and commissioned me to make a serving spoon as her gift to the happy couple. Here's the finished product, carved from locally felled purple plum:

Almost a Dozen

Got down to some serious carving over the weekend. I axed out the spoons on Saturday (and a couple extra on Sunday), used the knife to smarten up the handles and the underside of the bowls yesterday and today I used the twca cam to hollow out the bowls. There were a few hiccups along the way and a few minor adjustments to make, but I'm really happy to have been able to be as productive as I have.

Axed out spoons ready for knife work

Axing spoons

Today's weather was extremely changeable. After roughly finishing two spoons (another two were failures - an unexpected knot and a too thin bowl) I decided to concentrate on just the axe work as I could do the rest indoors. I'll finish them off tomorrow.

My 3 Favourite Carving Woods

Silver birch (Betula pendula)

Identification

It is easily identified by its white, peeling bark. On the bark, starting at the base, grow dark, rough arrows/diamonds, which can cause the whole base of the tree to appear dark and rough. Birches can grow 30m (100') tall. The shoots on the branches are slender and tend to droop. The leaves are small and trianglar, with ragged teeth along the edges.

Some Traditional Uses

The bark has been used to make containers and even canoes. The thin, flexible branches are used to make besoms (think 'witches broomstick'). Birch poles were also used to stir molten copper as they prevented oxides from forming, which meant a purer copper.

My Birch Carvings

Maples (Acer campestre - field maple, Acer pseudoplatanus - sycamore)

Identification

Tend to be densely crowned, with pale, cracked bark. The leaves are opposite paired with five veins radiating from the stem to five lobes. Most easily recognised by their winged seeds that spiral to the ground like little helicopters. 

Some Traditional Uses

Perhaps most famously used to make violins, with the rippled grain being referred to as 'fiddleback'. The sap can also be boiled down to make syrup.

My Maple Carvings

Hornbeam (Carpinus Betulus)

Identification

The grey, smooth bark makes the trunks look a little like elephant's legs. The leaves a deeply veined with fine, uneven serrations.

Some Traditional Uses

Hornbeam is a very hard wood. As such it has been used for mallet heads, skittles and butchers' chopping blocks. The wood also burns very long and hot, used to smelt iron.

My Hornbeam Carvings

Hornbeam shrink pot

Hornbeam spoon and small shrink pot

What are your favourite woods for carving? Feel free to share examples of your work in the comments section.