Just a quick post to let you all know what's going on here in the spoon shop: the new batch of spoons is coming along nicely; lots of snow up here in New Hampshire the last couple of weeks, some thirty or so inches since the 5th of the month, so I've been hunkered down close to the woodstove going at it with hatchet and knives. This batch is a bunch of cherry, a few apple, and some butternut. As per usual, a mix of servers, eaters and a couple of big long cookers in there. This time I made a nice matching salad set. It's the first time I've made a set; I found a log that split nicely down the middle and I realized I could use both sides of the log, like a mirror image of each other...book matched if you will. As I split up the last of my stash of spoon wood I'm going to try and get some pieces that will make good spatulas. I've had a bunch of requests for them after one showed up in an earlier post. Below I've got some close ups of one I use quite a bit along with another really cool spoon with a hole in the middle for scooping stuff out of water, when you don't want the water to come with it. It was pretty cool how the hole came about; it was a quirky piece of a pear tree that just seemed to keep twisting as I worked it and it dried out. It sat in the spoon basket for about a year I wasn't sure if it would ever make it. Then one day a couple of weeks ago I picked it up again gave it a look...this way...that way...up...down. I held it lefty, then righty, then I raised it to my mouth...to long to be an eating spoon, but the bowl wasn't wide enough to really serve with. It came from a bent branch so it was cranked to much to stir with. What to do...what to do...hmmm. I don't like to give up on any spoon I feel an obligation to the tree, the branch, or log it came from to get something usable from it. That being said this one seemed destined for the kindling pile, until I held it up in front of the window and saw that I had almost carved right through the bowl. I could see the sunlight shining through the middle. Eureka!! For a long time now my wife, Amy has been asking me to carve some kind of slotted spoon. Since I repeatedly scowl at the stamped out, hideous piece of bamboo or rubber wood or what ever, with the perfectly machined four slots in it, that she won't let me take out of the spoon bucket next to the stove. The only remnant of all the Target or Crate and Barrel mass produced crap that used to be in there. What I decided to do was to keep carving until I went through, then stick some sand paper in there and smooth it out and viola a spoon that performs all the functions of the rubber wood junk. Anyhow here is a couple of shots of the "spoon with the hole" and the spatula...I also threw in a couple of the new batch that still need some carving work and the finish.
the hole in the bowl
you can see the quirky shape here
but with the hole in it this one easily
scoops boiled veggies out of the pot to
the plate leaving the water behind
a couple of the spatula
and few from the new batch ...along with
a gratuitous shot of a hanging wall shelf
I'm working on.
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