Sunrise on Sunday morning over the SPOONFEST campsite some of the wood we had gathered, I had planned to add notes about what each species was good for but ran out of time. We had over a dozen species of wood ranging from lime and horse chestnut to hornbeam, field maple and cherry. I was a bit disappointed nobody made…
This post is mainlythe first batch of photos of SPOONFEST the first international celebration of the carved wooden spoon. Around 170 people came together from Holland, Czech republic, Sweden, Germany, France, USA, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The week before my daughter Jojo and I were busy gathering perfect spooncarving wood, here we are thinning a birch woodland planted by…
SPOONFEST is over, the first international celebration of the carved wooden spoon was all that we hoped it would be and much much more. It has been a lot of work and I am now straight into an amazing course on mocataugan making with Jarrod Stone Dahl so no time to sort the few pictures I had time to take,…
I started carving spoons 21 years ago inspired by Wille Sundqvists book “Swedish Carving Technique” back then there were no spoon carving courses the UK green woodworking scene was all about making windsor chairs on pole lathes. I was totally inspired by Wille Sunqvist “Carved utensils and other objects are a joy to use and live with. They are the…
On my last spooncarving course one of the students was TV presenter and green woodworking enthusiast Adam Hart Davis. He has been greenwoodworking for many years and is particularly fond of spooncarving. I was inspired to hear that Adam carves spoons on the train. I travel to London fairly often and have been learning to knit but spooncarving on the…
Here are pics from bowl and spooncarving courses just finished. Rob Nicholson is a good greenwoodworker but this was his first go at carving bowls, he did a nice blog post showing all the stages here. Here are a couple of finished bowls and then it was on to spooncarving first cutting suitable raw material with a big Japanese pull…
It’s important to get the best wood for spoon carving. When starting out I recomend willow (Salix sp), poplar (Populus sp), alder (Alnus) and lime (Tilia sp) lime in the UK is basswood in the US. These are the softest of the hardwoods. These woods carve really easily when freshly cut or green and make excellent cooking and serving spoons.…
SPOONFEST is a gathering of everyone interested in spooncarving for a weekends fun, sharing and inspiration. It started out as a sort of pipe dream of getting all our favourite carvers together to talk spoons and carve together, it seems to have taken off into a genuine international event with carvers, collectors, beginners and fellow obsessives from Sweden, USA, Holland…
I really dislike the tourist tat Welsh lovespoons that most people know but I was recently sent photos of a gorgeous original Welsh lovespoon which is a simple beautiful understated form with just the right amount of decoration. I have not done a copy yet, but I will. Would it be right to make a spoon like this and offer…
This is Yvonne with a cherry kuksa she carved on my “fun carving course” last week. Close up of the kuksa, these are based on traditional Sami drinking cups. Yvonne is a beekeeper who’s business is selling the alternative products of the hive. I am a fan of a drop of propolis (bee glue) on a cut to speed healing,…
