I am a bit late doing my draw but we had 34 replies in the comments box for the book giveaway and I just put 1-34 into the random number generator and it came up 7 so if “The Fuz” would like to get in contact I have a book for you.
I have just been sent these two links and thought folks would enjoy them. First Mike Turnock the last sievemaker, a nice slideshow of all the stages in producing garden sieves from Jon Henley of the Guardian. Amazing to think that a craft like this could survive as a viable business without any subsidy since medieval times and yet could…
In March I posted about Portland Works a rather wonderful piece of Sheffield history. This was the first purpose built cutlery works in Sheffield and the first place in the world where stainless steel was made into cutlery. It has been in continuous use by various metalworking and cutlery trades since it was built and despite being grade II* listed…
When my customers buy work from me it generally arrives in a fairly shoddy looking cardboard box which I collected from the supermarket and reused. I am aware that this does not give the feeling of value and quality that I feel for my work. I know how wonderful it feels opening beautiful, well designed packaging, the Apple company has…
One of the highlights of my recent trip to Galicia was a visit to an ethnographic museum where amongst other wonderful craftwork I saw an excellent display of locally made spoons. The design looked excellent and I have been looking forward to making some copies and learning more about how they work. So here are the first ones. I find…
We don’t have a TV but occasionally folk tell me about things that are worth watching on BBCiplayer so this week I watched the last episode of Ray Mears Northern Wilderness series. I chose that episode partly because I had heard it was the best and partly because if covered the North West coast of Canada and area where there…
Websites are great for craftspeople to sell work if you have repeatable items. They are not so easy for one off pieces as creating a webpage with photos and details takes time this is OK if your pieces are hundreds of pounds but for £20 piece it can take as long to update all the details as it took to…
I am sure some readers already have a copy of my book “the Wooden Bowl” but if you haven’t (or if you want one to give to someone else) post in the comments box below and I’ll draw a name from a hat to get a free book. This can go anywhere in the world. It is a nice coffee…
Jon Henley’s article on Mike Turnock the last sievemaker is in the guardian today and online here. As always it is a really nicely written article and there will be a slide show showing all the processes of making a sieve on Tuesday next week, I’ll add a link when it is up. The photo of Mike is not very…
We have just uploaded course dates for next year and for the first time are running bowl carving courses. This will be Swedish style bowlcarving so we will be using axes and adzes carving green wood bowls like these.We will also be doing one course on shrink pots which should be fun. The courses last year were very popular and…
