Sorry these are all sold now. I am keeping an email list of folk that want them, no commitment and no guarantee when they will be here but I'll send you an email as soon as the next ones are in stock.
I have been forging my own hook tools and spoon knives for 20 years but never made them for sale. I have struggled to find any easily available hook knives that I could recommend despite buying one of pretty well every one made for people to try out on my spoon carving courses. I have been trying for about 3 years to get good hooks made for me and now I have some that I am delighted with, they only come through in small numbers though and I know lots of folk out there are waiting. This post is to show you what they look like and le you know I have 25 right handed and 5 lefts in stock. They are razor sharp and a design that works really very well. You can carve a spoon with just the one knife, I only use a lefty for deep ladles and kuksas.
You can buy them hook only for £20 or I fit a long ash handle and ready to go they are £35.
UK P&P is £5 per order rest of world £10. Paypal or cheque, email first to check they have not all gone. I am afraid I can't promise when I'll have the next batch.
In the UK these are for sale to over 18s only so if I don't know you you need to include something in the email that shows me you are over 18 eg a link to your blog or website which links with your email address or a photo of your driving license or passport which again would need to have same name as email or delivery name and address.
Clogmaking is in the press again even making the Radio 4 Today program this morning. The story as reported goes like this, there is a resurgence of interest in Welsh clog dancing but not enough clogs. There is only one clogmaker left in Wales and the craft may die out, there is even a clog amnesty to get people to hand in their old clogs. One newspaper is reporting that this amnesty is somehow going to fund an apprentice clogmaker though the official amnesty page makes no mention of that, and it is difficult to see how it would generate the sort of funds needed.
The true story as is often the case is much more interesting and much deeper. There are in fact quite a few folk making clogs but most use machine cut clog soles sawn on a bandsaw. We should point out here that English and Welsh clogs have always been a wooden sole with a leather upper unlike the French, Spanish or Dutch clogs and sabbots which are all wood, they are also far more comfortable. The most difficult bit of this traditional craft and the bit that people lay claim to being "the last of" is cutting the clog sole with long handles clog knives. You use a set of three knives, the blocker, for most of the shaping, the hollower, to hollow where your foot sits and the gripper, to cut the groove the leather upper gets nailed into.
For many years the only person in the UK who was making all his clogs in this traditional way was Jeremy Atkinson who we have written about before here Jeremy spent 25 years researching the craft working with the last retired clogmakers in Wales, visiting working clogmakers in Spain he even wrote the book on clogmaking back in 1984 .
Here he is in the workshop
More recently one of the clogmakers who uses bandsawn soles Trefor Owen has also started demonstrating some cutting with knives and gaining a lot of press as "the last full time clogmaker in Wales"
Here he is
Journalists love to tell the story of the last craftsman on the verge of dying out, it is at the same time compelling and frustrating. It is frustrating because it is a self fulfilling prophecy. So long as there is big national publicity to be gained from being the last one about to die out there is very little incentive to train someone else to work as competition. I know this all too well having taught many people to turn wooden bowls on a pole lathe journalists desperately want to print that I am "the last working pole lathe turner". Occasionally I will tell them that I am still "the last person earning the majority of my income from making bowls on a pole lathe" but surely the fact that there were no pole lathe bowl turners 25 years ago and now there are probably 50 that can do it in the UK and others I have taught in Japan, Sweden the USA and across Europe is a far more interesting story? Apparently not what sells papers and Radio is the last of the line story. How then do we encourage people to take on an apprentice?
In 2005 Jeremy Atkinson did actually train a clogmaker Geraint Parfitt at St Fagans the Welsh National folk museum at Cardiff where he is still working today. This film shows some of the that process.
Through the Heritage Crafts Association we are working hard to adress the current issue of lack of entry routes to the traditional crafts. Getting journalists interested in the current upsurge in interest rather than the last of the line is key. What we are experiencing is not the end it is the beginning, a little like the upsurge in interest in rare breeds, locally sourced and organic food over the last 20 years, people want to buy these things and young people want to find fulfilling work there is a rosy future ahead.
The French artist/sculptor Hubert Duprat gives caddis fly larvae gold to build their tubular cases with, they are so beautiful.
Here is the artist discussing his work, he describes the caddis project starting at 2.30. I like the way he describes it as a collaborative project with himself as the architect and the caddis as the builders.
I am very proud of my daughter Jojo who has been doing some really great spoons recently. Jojo learnt to use a knife at a very young age, this is Swedish master carver Wille Sundqvist teaching her and Ollie some carving techniques when they were 6 and 9 years old.
Fast forward 10 years and here she is in typical teenager fashion multi-tasking watching Glee on the computer whilst carving spoons.
She has done some impressive spoons this week, most are yet to be photographed but she did this lovely snap this morning, somehow it feels like a monumental sculpture. It was carved evenly thin and soaked in linseed for over a week so went translucent. She plans to do more photos and start a blog of her own work but for now she is just obsessively carving and developing her own spoons.
Do Americans do shrove tuesday? I remember years ago going to Mardi Gras at New Orleans but do you eat special stuff to eat up the eggs, milk and fat that you are going to give up for lent? or like us eat the goodies and then not give up?
Anyway we do pancake day and this one is special because it is the first time we are using the most beautiful spoon made by Fritiof Runhall. It holds just the right amount of batter for the pancake pan, scrapes the last drip from the bowl and the hook on the back stops it falling in so you always have a clean handle. Cooking should be an aesthetic experience, good food deserves good utensils, food made with love, utensils made with love.
When I started teaching wooden spoon carving I would allow people to "go free with the wood" just teaching them basic technique and letting their imaginations run wild. They made crap spoons but were happy. After a while I decided for my foundation beginners course I had to restrict the options and teach in a much more methodical way in order for people to learn the basic skills. Things went so much better, the spoons improved and more importantly people became better carvers and were empowered to make better work when they got home. I was still allowing much more choice in my more advanced developers courses but I was never really pleased that folk were moving on as much as I had hoped. Last week I changed all that, I ran a new developers course in which we all worked together on copying some excellent spoon designs. We started with a romanian gypsy spoon based on one carved by Ion Constantin, then did my standard Galician eating spoon design and then chose other spoons form my collection to copy. Here are a few images sent to me by David who was on the course and made very nice spoons. Spoons on the left of each pair are the original and the one on the right David's copy.
The results were fantastic. The spoons were great but also people learnt so much more. They learnt about what makes good design as we discussed what made each spoon work, and also they learnt fine control of their tools to make exactly what they set out to make. Here are some more spoons made on the course.
To me this is very much like the way people learn music. First you learn to play the best music that has gone before, this gives you control over the instrument but also introduces you to the vocabulary of your chosen medium. Once you can do a superb job at reproducing examples of craft you like then is the time to progress to making something truly your own. This may come through going back to the roots looking in museums. It may come through combining influences from other craftspeople you admire, it may be a step on in a new direction but given the sound foundations of craft skill and knowledge of materials and the vocabulary of what has gone before you will make beautiful objects.
If you go freestyle too soon you may be a born genius but more likely what you make will be the craft equivalent of someone picking up a violin for the first time and going freestyle.
I can understand people wanting to make their own individual work but it really helps if you learn to play others music first. I know these folk will not go home and carry on making replica Robin Wood spoons any more than musicians carry on playing the first song they learned, it is a useful part of the development.
Here are a few more pics from the course from Keith
learning spoon carving knife grips
discussing spoon design
carving eating spoons
finding spoons in crooked timber
splitting a crook to get several spoons
studying knife sharpening
sharpening under the microscope
knife edge x20
Keith Mathews AKA Fritiof Jnr with his spoon
It was a fun course, I run these just twice a year and there are still places left on the autumn courses for both beginners and developers details here
Derrick West has the sea running through his veins; at 84 he is Britain's oldest working fisherman.
"I have no plans for retirement. I'm not interested in sitting around watching TV; that's when you start to go downhill."
A third generation whelkman, Derrick has fished oysters, cockles and whelks along the Kentish coast for over 67 years. Today his family business, West Whelks, is on the quayside of Whitstable Harbour.
Take 3 minutes out to enjoy this loively film by Vern Cummins
