Monthly Archives: December 2020

December 29, 2020 · 4:34 pm

Carving Wooden Spoons is delightful

Oh my goodness! Carving wooden spoons is just wonderful!

Hard work, yes. but…. ohhhh….

I have been a wood carver for decades, but have just discovered the joy of carving spoons.

The picture above is the first spoon I carved…. for our grandson.

My husband loved it, so I secretly carved one for him for Christmas, too.

I asked my family if they would like spoons, and the response was an enthusiastic yes!

So…

and

And, then….

I couldn’t resist combining one of my other great delights, which is carving wooden dolls, with spoon carving.

The inspiration that poured out kept me out of bed for a couple of nights as I had to sit and draw and draw and draw

all the ideas that were just pouring out….

I have tied in a few metaphors that have been weaving their way around in my heart…

On Facebook, I learned about stardust that has been discovered in Antarctica and then having a long time friend

sent me a poem about how the trees are full of stardust (as we all are) just enchanted me!

I am now carving what I call: ‘Storyteller Spoons’ – hand carved spoons that are meant to stir up STORIES, not soup.

After, stories are food for the Soul 🙂

Oooh! I had to carve a Star Baby spoon from walnut:

And, I have started a series of ‘Stardust Sisters Spoons’- articulated dolls with moving arms,

This one is carved from a blank that my son made for me from a birch tree that died and was cut down

in his neighbor’s yard:

I carved this Stardust Sister from the bass wood blank that came with the kit:

I love the metaphor of hearts and hands working together, so I went back to

the drawings that I did for the first scoop that I carved for my daughter.

But, I added a hand to the spoon, and carved out a bowl in the palm of the hand

as well as in the scoop of the heart.

While I was carving it, it came to me that spoons are meant to gather things,

but also to offer them, which is the perfect metaphor for this spoon:

I will be working with Hearts and Hands together a whole lot!

I made a video showing some of the carving that I have done over the last 30 odd years,

as well as the very very first beginnings of getting started in spoon carving.

These are just the first spoons that I have carved, and now that I have worked out

a pattern language for myself with this, there will be many, many more!

(I hope!) 😀

And, I hope that you are finding things that bring you joy, too!

Be kind, be safe, be well! ❤

Here’s the video:

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Filed under eco crafts & green projects, gifts & easy to make gifts & presents, spoon carving, video tutorial, wooden dolls, woodwork

Tagged as #carvedspoon, #spooncarving, #spoondoll, #storytellerspoon, #woodcarving, #woodendoll, carved spoons, hand carved dolls, spoon carving, Spoon doll, Storyteller spoon, wooden doll

December 21, 2020 · 2:49 pm

Hearts and Flowers Large Teneriffe Lace Loom

All through the Covid pandemic, I have been working on designing and fine tuning a large new Teneriffe Lace loom that is my response to the situation that we are all in.

I wanted to create a loom that would be a way of celebrating love, compassion, kindness, resiliency, hope and friendship. The image that came up for me was of hearts and flowers.

So, I have designed a large Teneriffe Lace loom that is meant to be woven on with thicker yarns or threads than ‘normal’ and to be much larger than ‘normal’.

At the beginning of March 2020, a very kind lady sent me a pair of ‘Polka’ Teneriffe looms to say thank you for all the hard work that I put into writing the ‘Potholder Loom Weaving’ book.

I was delighted with them- but didn’t like the way the foundation strand was put onto them.

So, I figured out a different way of continuously chaining on the foundation chain.

I also figured out a way of warping the loom continuously, and then had to work out the logistics of weaving the heart and flower motifs, and, also, how to get the motifs off the loom in a workable way.

I wove hundreds of samples and made dozens of variations on the looms.

Lots of them became firewood 🙂

BUT eventually I arrived at the configuration that I love.

Gary McFarland is the mastermind behind the CNC machine at Dewberry Ridge Looms and he has added his finesse to the final version of the loom.

The link to buy the loom is:

https://www.dewberryridge.com/products/hearts-and-flowers-large-teneriffe-lace-loom

I have made 4 videos that show the complete how to’s for how to weave the Hearts and Flowers motifs.

They are:

1- How to put the foundation chain onto the loom.

I hope that the Hearts and Flowers Large Teneriffe Lace Loom will bring happiness! ❤

I have also designed a group of smaller Teneriffe Lace Looms and posted weave alongs for them.

Here’s the link to all of them: LINK

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Filed under Dewberry Ridge looms, free pattern, gifts & easy to make gifts & presents, Heart Loom, Loom & looms & small loom weaving, Teneriffe lace, tutorial & how to, video tutorial, weave along, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as #heartsandflowersteneriffelaceloom, #lacemaking, #teneriffelace, #teneriffelaceweavealong, hearts and flowers teneriffe lace loom, lace making, Teneriffe lace

December 5, 2020 · 10:52 am

Tiny Woven Snowmen are so much fun

One of my most favorite things to do at Christmas time is to make ‘the ornament of the year’ to give to family and friends. I usually end up making a LOT of them and it’s totally delightful.

This year, I have been weaving up a ton of tiny Snowmen- I designed them last year and made a video so other people can make them too.

Here’s the link to the ‘how to’ video:

https://youtu.be/a-9cfTzd4QI

Woven Needle Books instead of Pin Cushions

One of my favorite projects in my new book, Innovative Frame Loom Weaving, is an extremely useful tool.

It’s a woven Needle Book that holds sewing needles.

Pin cushions are good for pins, but needles can get buried in them too easily.

Needle books hold sewing, darning and other craft needles safely and handily.

This video shows variations on the Needle book that I designed for the frame loom, including ones woven on the potholder loom and Weave It style pin loom.

And, also, a relative asked for a brooch that she could stick pins and needles in while mending, so there’s one of those in the video, too!