Hand-carved Creations

My style is not to find the perfect design and then create a production run of identical spoons. I am happy to used twisted or gnarled wood as well as straight grained wood and see what emerges. For instance in the images to the right, I was splitting a piece of fruit wood, pear I think, and out popped the little dimple! There was an interesting knot further along the piece of wood which could possibly be turned into a spoon-bowl and a bowl-with-a-hole. Fortuitous? Well, now here's the rub, there wasn't really enough width at the bowl end to make spoon-bowls big enough to balance the length of the handles. But the dimple was too perfect not to use so I compromised and produced a rather quirky pair of salad servers.

pair of wooden salad servers made from pear wood

detail of a pair of wooden salad servers made from pear wood

My spoons are all unique!

My spoons vary in size from tiny salt spoons, only a couple of inches long, to long vinaigrette spoons (10 or 12 inches long and bookending the group of spoons in the picture to the right), from a classic tea caddy ladle to the behemoth potting-shed scoop at the bottom of the page. This was a special commission and is made from an old oak tree that came down in a storm. The shape was inspired by Monty Don's aluminium one that he can often be seen using on Gardener's World on the BBC. But carving one out of oak is very different to making one out of aluminium! The handle is quite long to help balance it but you need to hold it with one thumb inside the scoop and your middle finger on the rest underneath.

small hand carved wooden spoon made from pear wood for a tea caddy

selection of hand carved wooden spoons made from cherry wood

large hand carved wooden scoop made from oak