SPOON # 50 & 51 - Thursday 26 th December

Having run out of wood last week, I decided it was time to go out and get some. I'd tried a local tree surgeon whose house I pass everyday, but there's never anyone home, as was the case on this instance. So I put a note through the door explaining my circumstances in the hope that they'd get back to me, but no such luck.

So last Saturday evening I set out to a nearby wood with a bow saw. I hadn't really thought it through properly, a fact bourn out by how dark it was when I got there and that I couldn't actually see what trees I was looking at. I found what I presumed was a variety of willow growing beside a river with some tall, straight pollard type branches.

I got it home and carved a couple of spoons. It was very green wood, very wet and as such I had to be careful that it didn't dry out too quickly and crack.

I tried to do some nautical, scrimshaw type kolrosing - as you can see I found the little curls quite difficult so need to work on that.

 

 

The brown mark in the middle of the spoon that looks like a burn is a burn. As I was carving the spoon it began to split at the tip of the bowl so I popped it in the micro wave for several 20 second blasts in order to dry it out. On the last blast I gave it 30 seconds and burned it - oh well.

This is a spoon design I have used before, but previously with a smaller bowl that looked more like a tea spoon - I think it works much better with a larger bowl and is more practical as an eating spoon now.