I have just finished this rather fine quaich for a special order from a customer in Sweden. It may look just like the normal quaich on my website untill you see it alongside the one I use myself. It is a big brother quaich. Although I have been making quaiches for a couple of years now I only really started…
Folks who have been watching my blog for a while may remember me visiting Stuart Mitchell a knifemaker in Sheffield. He works in Portland Works which was built in the 1870s as a cutlery works. It has an incredibly important part in Sheffield if not world history as the place where stainless steel was first manufactured in 1913. Today the…
This morning I had to stay home with a sick son but Geoff braved the foul morning weather, high wind and driving rain to cut the last coping stones and finish off our bench. I went along in the afternoon to take some pictures just as he finished off. We are both really pleased with it. I see a great…
I have just read a rather enjoyable short book called “Apprenticeship, The Necessity of Learning by Doing” By Lida Lopes Cardozo Kindersley & Martin Gay Ford. At £8 for 50 small pages it is not a cheap book but I certainly had my £8 worth from it. The forward by HRH Price Charles is in itself worth reading, I’ll quote…
The bench is taking a little longer than anticipated as we expected to be working with second hand walling stone and with the new quarried stone we are having to cut all the coping stones which takes time. It is coming one very nicely though. Geoff tells me the oft repeated story that whenever a waller pics up a stone…
Today I have been working in a wonderful location again. This is the National Trust Longshaw Estate about 10 miles from home. I lived here 13 years ago but today I was back to fit a special bench. It is the first time I have worked with a dry stone waller mixing walling and green oak to create what I…
Last night we rewatched “Kinky Boots” a very entertaining and amusing film based on the true story of how one old established shoe company faced with cheap imports and declining sales diversified into fetish footwear. One thing I had not really appreciated when I first watched it were the lovely close up shots of the antiquated machinery working thick leather…
This week I have been working with Tim Clements a documentary film maker who is starting work on a project to make a documentary on heritage craftspeople. It was a very interesting process I think for both of us. Tim had interesting ideas about what he wanted but was feeling his way and using me as a guinea pig to…
Its very easy not to take advantage of what is outside your door, so many folk in London rarely go to museums, galleries and theatre and to be honest I don’t often walk in the hills around our home, I never cease to appreciate and draw inspiration from the scenery around me but I guess I get a lot of…
It has been a very busy week with lots of work, a mini break camping trip with an old friend to Robin Hood’s bay but the highlight was yesterdays meeting in a basement in London where we made major steps forward with out new Heritage Crafts Association. Our committee has grown to 8 and we had an all day meeting…
