Carving is Addictive

Oh my goodness.  Carving spoons and kitchen utensils is addictive.  I should have called last month "Spoon-tober," I carved so much.  Probably 23 - 26 wooden utensils were carved; a special order for a friend.

Fortunately for me, Mark told me where a tulip poplar tree had fallen in the woods and was still green.  It was wonderfully carvable wood and I wanted to work with it nonstop.  My self imposed deadline for the project was Oct. 31 and I am pretty accountable to myself for such things.

I worked hard and finished on time. The goodies got put in the mail yesterday and so today has been spent vacuuming all the sawdust and wood bits from all over the house.  (How it gets to some of the places it does, I have no idea.)  I cleaned off my desk to make room for scherenschnitte time.  November will be a time for cutting my Christmas cards.  I'm sure that as soon as I get into it, I will feel as addicted to it as I do to the carving right now.

I carved fives set of these.  They varied wildly in how they turned out.  (It depends on the shape and size of the branches and the usable space between knots.

I mostly carved out on my screened in porch, but  my studio room, aka Snippyville, also  doubled as a wood shop.

Here's a spurtle in the rough stages. Every one of the spurtles turned out wildly different looking.

My beloved ax.  I mostly treat this tool like a baby. It is a good one.

My babies were almost done at this point.  They had all been sanded smooth.  Then, I soaked  the in water to allow the grain to rise again and then to get sanded once more.