I just posted these off tot heir new home St Fagans museum of Welsh Life. They are copies of iron age bowls found at the Glastonbury lake villages. I have been very very familiar with the drawings for many years but never made them up before and as is often the case the finished artefact is very very different in 3d than as a scale drawing. I have not realised just how big they were. 

 This one with the lid was a serious weight when on the lathe, the square sides cut very inefficiently from the tree and mean that I can’t get bowls out of the middle as a nest too so all in all they took far more work that I had anticipated. It is always interesting to make replicas of important pieces though and a learning experience. I made them on my pole lathe, in my book I discus the different types of lathes that could have been available in the Iron Age, I think it most likely they were turned not on a pole lathe but a two person strap lathe.

This fun commission is a departure from my usual work, I am not really a carver of this type of work but it was done for folk I like a lot who needed it in a hurry. This is the logo of Hiut denim, as someone commented recently they are jeans made by cardigans. I’ll add a film below to give the background story and you’ll see why I love them. The first image is a very quick sketch produced to show the sort of design I had in mind and to the right this finished piece carved through weathered oak. Folk who know the brand will know how this sort of fits with their image.

so here is the Hiut story

Our town is going to make jeans again

Cardigan is a small town of 4,000 good people. 400 of them used to make jeans. They made 35,000 pairs a week. For three decades.
 
Then one day the factory closed. It left town. But all that skill and knowhow remained. Without any way of showing the world what they could do.
 
That’s why we have started The Hiut Denim Company. To bring manufacturing back home. To use all that skill on our doorstep. And to breathe new life into our town.
 
As one of the Grand Masters said to me when I was interviewing: “This is what I know how to do. This is what I do best.” I just sat there thinking I have to make this work.
 
So yes, our town is going to make jeans again.
 
Here goes.

Author Robin Wood

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