Spoonfest

These past few weeks have gone by in a blur. April, the Kids and I were part of the Traditional Ways Gathering the 3rd week of August. I will post pictures of that in a bit as I have to get the pictures sorted out.

Midway through that event I left for Edale, England for the first annual Spoonfest, a gathering of wooden spoon carvers and enthusiasts from around the world. I first heard about it on Facebook in the spring, when organizers Robin Wood and Barn "The Spoon" Carder announced it, both of whom are spoon carvers and green woodworkers. I love carved wooden spoons and have been carving them pretty seriously for years so when I read about the event I realized I had to attend. I also was invited to teach a bark sheath class at the event, that was a real honor to be in the line up with folks I knew about through researching spoon carving on the Internet over the years. I met lot's of friendly folks from the UK but also from all over Europe as well. What fun to be in a group of 150 people all attending the event for the very same reason...the wooden spoon. I guess that makes me kinda a geek when it comes to this subject. Being able to talk spoons for hours or more like days on end with folks is a pretty special thing. Usually after a few minutes most folks' eye's glaze over.... I know my wife's do....not at Spoonfest we were still talking spoons 5 days after the event! The event had an instant gallery with attendees spoons on display as well as a private collection of spoons from around the world. There was a space for spoon for sale as well. Over all there were 100's and 100's of wooden spoons, all shapes and sizes. Unfortunately too many to post photos of here, I posted a few below. There were many other blog posts on the event, Robin's link here has a bunch of other blogs on the event and some posts with photos here and here.

I also taught a 2 1/2 day class on making and using Crooked Knives the week after the big event. My thanks go out to Robin for making that class happen.  It was a great bunch of guys who made some really nice knives. Here's a blog post on the crooked knife class.

I also got to spend some time with Robin turning nesting bowls in his shop more on that later......

huge tent for the event

the line up

spoon shop with workshops underway in the background

One of Robin's workshops

Jogge Sundqvist from Sweden talking about spoon design

Barn giving lessons in how to use the Twca Cam, large hooked tool

who's this goof ball?

Wille and Jogge Sundqvist's spoons

Fritiof's spoons also from Sweden

Fritiof's eating spoon drying after breakfast

My friend Fred Livesay from Minnesota teaching a young spoon carver