April has been a month of education. I have been SUPER busy. After the latest spoon carving course I am just catching up with my pictures and finding time to reflect..
We started a couple of weeks ago with a beginners spoon carving course in Edale. Unlike my previous Edale course we had lovely weather, the first sun of the year. We spent one evening sat outside the village pub, shivering, but determined to soak up that vitamin D.
Peter & Jörg (above) had travelled all the way from Switzerland for the course. Apparently there is not much spoon carving in their country – they are going to take their skills away and kick things off.
The spoon knife is the trickiest of the tools to learn. We learn the knife grips in the afternoon then have a rest and sleep on the techniques, before putting them to practise the following morning, refreshed & ready to go.
Always a firm favourite part of the spoon carving course – lunch! I spend my evenings making a big pot of soup to eat, so everyone gets to experience eating with a wooden spoon. Piles of bread and cheese, pickles and salad, to keep our energy up – carving is hard work!
The end of the course. Eight happy people and their spoons. Ready to send off into the world, and make even more spoons.
My following course was in Birmingham – an eating spoon carving course. We were a smaller group & spent two days getting down into the nitty gritty of spoon details. Everyone was already well versed with the axe and knife so we got to spend our time getting into the depths of spoon nerdery. Steve (2nd from left, below) had attended my very first Birmingham course, and was back again to learn some more, which was lovely.
This course was run back-to-back with my following course (for less tidying up!) which was a day course.
Another lovely group of people, who got well stuck in and carved some fantastic first spoons.
I have just one final course this spring, before I head of travelling for the summer. See more details here. I will be in Sweden teaching a class in late May, then Greenwood Fest in June, followed by a few weeks of travelling across the US.
Wish I Could Afford To Attend !