Spoon Crook Hunting

Over the weekend I went down to my dads in Peterborough to celebrate his birthday with him. Whilst there I went to the local woodland park close to his house to go search for any wood that had been recently felled. Whilst doing this I thought it would be worth looking for some crooks to make some nicely cranked spoons from. There wasn’t a great choice of species as willow was the only thing that was felled at the time, but beggars can’t be choosers. It will make some excellent general cooking spoons, plus will be nice to practice for when I get denser/harder crooked woods.

Some of the crooks I was able to find:






Over the next couple of days or weeks these crooks will be fully carved up into lovely spoons.

Finshed Shelf and A New Book

Have now finished painting the carved shelf from my last post. Did it in a lovely cream and red to match my room and then gave it a little varnish to keep it in good nick. After that I put it up and began stacking all the books on it as you can see.



The reason why I did this whole design on the shelf was because I felt that a plain wooden shelf would be……well…..just boring!!! The work I’ve put into it makes it look unique and a little quirky but most importantly it makes my shelf as is can remember putting in all the notches and diamonds, all the paint, all the mistakes. Because of all of these points it just feels much nicer in my bedroom and a joy to use.

And its ready just in time as this morning I had a lovely and exciting package waiting for me from America! A soon as I saw it I ripped it open to find a copy of………

Wille Sundqvist’s “Swedish Carving Techniques”. Finally found a copy of it at a decent price and in a very good condition as well. For those who don't know who Wille Sundqvist is, he is one swedens best crafts people, he was also one of swedens provincial handcraft consultants, and his carved works are an inspiration to hundreds of craftspeople. Some of the information from his this book will hopefully better my understanding of carving so my spoons will hopefully get better. Only time will tell……….

When One Gets a Little "Board"

Over the past couple of months my parents and I have been saying that I need some shelving in my room for the books I have. Being a historical re-enactor one does tend to acquire a lot of books on history, armour, politics, household accounts, archaeology, and so on. However due to the small book space I currently have many of these books were living life on the floor, not the best place for a book.

As a woodworker I saw it as an opportunity to have a little fun and customise a piece of furniture for my room. I accompanied my parent to B&Q and bought some pine boarding. I know its not green wood as this blog focuses on but it was a little fun project for myself.

To achieve the design I had in mind I marked up the board every 2 centimetres.

Then next cut into the marks.

And then simply removed some of the wood on either side of the marks to create a diamond shape. I alternated the diamond pattern to produce this effect with diamond, square, diamond, square, etc.

All in all I am quite pleased with the effect the pattern creates. Give the shelf presence and looks a lot better than a plain flat shelf. Have now just got to paint the shelf and attach it to the supports.

Because of this I am now have ideas on other forms of patterning that I could do on future shelves. Maybe a zigzag pattern? Its amazing what one can do in a couple hours with a sharp knife, a bit of wood, and a little artistic vision.

First Spoons of the New Year

Have finally got round to getting myself a new camera over Christmas after my last one went wizz bang kaboom. Thought I’d have a practice by taking some photos of some of my recent spoons. Had ago playing with some lighting effects on a few of them with the lamp on my desk, Something cheap and cheerful which gave some good effects.

These spoons are from a small log of birch which I got down from Peterborough. Carved them up over a couple of weeks, roughing them out then leaving them to dry out over 2-3 weeks and finishing them later. The reason I did them over three weeks is partly due to other commitments.

3 easting spoons and a server.

A close up of the tooled finish. getting better.




Had a go at soaking the spoons in linseed oil to get the transparent affect. its an interesting effect thought the spoons do leak linseed oil everywhere. possibly they need more time to cure. Also with the serving spoon I had ago at carving a design on the handle to add a little bit of pisaz.

These being the first spoons of 2011, am looking forward to carving more spoons.