I hope all my customers and blog readers have had a wonderful Christmas. For US readers we don’t have thanksgiving so this is the major time for families to spend time together and many folks end up driving across the country to catch up with family. This year those journeys were hampered by snow. Thankfully we didn’t have to go…
On Friday I visited Trevor Ablett one of the last of Sheffield’s pen and pocketknife makers. Trevor is on the left with Reg Cooper bowie knife maker on the right. I have visited Trevor a few times now and bought quite a few of his knives. I tend to give them as gifts when we visit folk on behalf of…
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…
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…
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…
Guardian readers might have been enjoying Jon Henley’s series of articles on traditional craftsmen in the Saturday edition. I spent yesterday with Jon first at the workshop of Mike Turnock the last sievemaker and then in the afternoon at my own workshop. The feature on Mike will be in this Saturday’s edition and the one on me in 2 weeks…
Rural crafts are being featured this week on Radio Four’s Farming Today Program and for those who are not up at 6am to listen you can listen online using BBC iplayerJust click the link then drag the slider to 9.25 when the feature starts. We hear quite a lot of press on good stories in the traditional crafts at the…
We get second hand copies of the Saturday Telegraph from my mother in law, the weekend section sometimes has nice craft stories. From yesterdays paper I spotted a separate magazine called “Telegraph Luxury” and on the cover it announced “The exquisite craft of the cobbler, the jeweler and the trunk maker.” That sounded like a fine article to me, no…
Back in February the Heritage Crafts Association were contacted about a new BBC TV series on traditional crafts. Mastercrafts fronted by Monty Don is now on its way and details are on the BBC website here http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/comingup/mastercrafts/ Here is a trailer
Since I became aware of the web every few months or so I scan around to see what happens if you look for traditional craft on the web. I have always been hugely impressed and inspired by the things I see going on in other countries and rather saddened by the lack of information on British traditional crafts. The situation…
