I love Welsh spoons, whilst the tradition of spooncarving died out in England it continued to be strong in Wales with many folk still alive that ate all the time with wooden bowls and spoons in their youth. This was particularly the case for the Welsh national dish a traditional broth called cawl (recipe below). Then there is the strong…
Thank you Fritiof Runhall and my merry band of spooncarving students for a wonderful couple of weeks. For Fritiof’s second course we again had some of the best carvers in the country. Here are Steve Tomlin and Barn the spoon chatting about the finer elements of spoon design. One of the things that was nice about Fritiof was that he…
Fritiof Runhall is one of Sweden’s best spooncarvers, which also probably makes him one of the best spooncarvers in the world. It has been a real pleasure then to learn from him as he came to teach a masterclass course for us in Edale. I feel spooncarving in the UK has come a long way in the last 5 years…
Meet Fritiof Runhall one of Sweden’s best spooncarvers. Sweden is known amongst green woodworkers for spooncarving largely through the writing of Wille Sundqvist and teaching of his son Jogge. There are very few professional spooncarvers though and Fritiof is one of the best. Here is some of his work. salad servers The top eating spoon is made from spruce and…
I wish I had been fast enough to buy one of these screen printed posters by Max Tempkin. I have written about craft and environmentalism beforeA jeweler working in the UK may appear relatively “environmentally friendly” but a single gold ring creates 20 tons of mill waste and the mining industry has been labeled as the single largest polluter in…
Last week I was carving cherry spoons. I just had 2 small cherry logs about 6″ diameter and 6″ long. I carve just with an axe and knives and ended up with 21 finished spoons. (only 20 in the picture because one is already on the way to it’s new owner) When I blogged last week folk asked for sideways…
This is my current evening entertainment, and my current favourite eating spoon design. I roughed these out from the green cherry log last night, let them dry then finished them off tonight. They are based on an old one I saw in a museum in Galicia though I keep changing them slightly. This batch I have experimented with a slightly…
The way craft skills are passed on has changed dramatically over the last 100 years. As with much of education the focus seems to me to have moved from knowledgeable teachers deciding what is good for the students whether they like it or not to the students being customers who get to do what they enjoy most or what is…
I thought I would share some inspirational pictures of wooden spoons. These are my favourites from the kitchens at the Swedish national folk craft school Saterglantan. This one (above and below) is by Wille Sundqvist After picking out my favourites to photograph I found they nearly all had the same makers mark, at a glance it looks like a fish…
A nice review of my foundation spooncarving course in this months Bushcraft Magazine. Paul who did the review has been carving and teaching for some time but still enjoyed it and learned some new things. Hopefully if you click on this image it will enlarge big enough to read. When I started I wondered whether it was a good idea…
