Steve Tomlin Crafts

Spoon carving workshop Manchester

Posted on January 22, 2018 by stevetomlin

Thursday 19th April 2018 10:00 – 4:30 £90 inc materials.
Email me stevetomlin8[at]gmail.com for more details or book your place here.
I’m really excited to be running my first spoon carving course in Manchester this spring. Take a day off work and learn how to carve wooden spoons from local timber using axe and knives. The course is suitable for beginners or those with carving experience looking to expand their skills and understanding of wood working.
The Edge Theatre is a fantastic venue in the heart of Chorlton, South Manchester.

Posted in greenwood courses, spoon carving, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged 2018, beginner, Chorlton, course, craft, Manchester, workshop | 2 Comments

Ancient cereals corn dolly

Posted on January 21, 2018 by stevetomlin

I love when craft brings different people and skills together and this harvest queen neck dolly which I just received represents two of my favourite people.
I met Helen Moran at Beamish museum back in 2012 where she was demonstrating making corn dollies. During our chat she mentioned that her ambition was to weave with spelt wheat which she had heard was particularly nice but very difficult to acquire.
Cue John Letts who I know through the scythe world and grows ancient varieties of cereals, including spelt, on his farm in Oxford. I chatted with him about the possibility of supplying some straw and buttered him up with a lovely border fan corn dolly woven by Helen.
Eventually, Helen made the epic trip from her home in Northumberland down to Oxford and came home with bundles of cereals which John had carefully hand-harvested for her.
The harvest neck is a traditional corn dolly linked to the last sheaf of the harvest and linked to many beliefs and customs. For me, it represents new friendships and shared crafts.

Posted in SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged corn dolly, harvest neck, John Letts, wheat | 4 Comments

Handmade Christmas turtle dove decorations

Posted on December 13, 2017 by stevetomlin

These new, tiny fan bird decorations are perfectly proportioned to hang on your Christmas tree this season. Each one is individually handmade, carved from a single piece of wood.
Either hang them individually amongst your baubles and tinsel or make your own mobile and watch them spin and glide together.

Posted in fan birds, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged christmas, decoration, handmade, turtle doves | Leave a comment

New hay rake tine cutter

Posted on October 10, 2017 by stevetomlin

I’ve been making wooden hay rakes for several years now. To make the rake teeth, called ‘tines’, a cleft ash billet is knocked through a sharpened steel tube called a tine cutter. As the wood is split from a larger log, the fibres run along the tine intact making each one very strong.

Recently I’ve been thinking about my rakes and that I would like to have a tine cutter to make slightly smaller tines. While I was at Beamish Museum the other day, I mentioned this to Bill who was helping on another stall. The very next day he turned up and gave me a perfect new tine cutter which he’d made the evening before. The generosity of makers never fails to amaze me.

Posted in SteveTomlinCrafts, tools, wooden rakes | Tagged hay rake, tine cutter, wooden rake | 10 Comments

Spill plane

Posted on October 5, 2017 by stevetomlin

During the summer I picked up an unusual little plane at a show and gave it a first trial this week.
All planes make shavings but with a spill plane, it is the shavings which are the product rather than the piece of wood being planed. The shaving, or ‘spill’ was used to transfer a flame, for example from a fire to light a candle before the age of matches. This model produces beautiful, tightly curled spirals which I think would also look fantastic as part of a flower arrangement.

Posted in SteveTomlinCrafts, tools | Tagged spill plane, spills | Leave a comment

Scything a wildflower meadow for beekeeping

Posted on October 2, 2017 by stevetomlin

I love honey and am fascinated by the lives of bees but have always been slightly put off keeping them by the amount of intervention that conventional beekeeping entails. So it was fascinating to meet the Lune Valley Community Beekeepers and talk to them about their ‘natural beekeeping’ while teaching them how to scythe.

The group have taken on a site where they plan to build a resource centre and, in the meantime have planted a fantastic wildflower meadow with a mix of annual and perennial species.

The meadow has been left until the end of the season to provide as much forage for the bees but was still a riot of colour. It was now time to cut the long meadow grass and I was happy to show them how to mow it using Austrian scythes.

Posted in scythe courses, Scytherspace | Tagged Austrian scythe, beekeeping, lancaster, wildflower meadow | Leave a comment

Scythes in Manchester stained glass

Posted on October 1, 2017 by stevetomlin

I moved to Manchester earlier this year. Lots of people wondered why I would be so mad as to relocate from the Lake District to the city. There’s lots of reasons but one of them is the excitement of bringing what are seen as rural skills and activities into an urban environment and introducing city dwellers to craft work.
This week I was at the Home cafe in Didsbury, part of Emmanuel Church when my eye caught a familiar shape in one of the stained glass windows. It’s lovely to know there are already scythes here.

Posted in Scytherspace | Tagged Manchester, scythe, stained glass, UK | Leave a comment

Beamish Show of Agriculture 2017

Posted on September 28, 2017 by stevetomlin

I’ve been attending the Beamish Museum Show of Agriculture for several years now, demonstrating how to make wooden hay rakes during the event. It’s one of my favourite shows, set in beautiful Edwardian countryside. Here are a selection of images that caught my eye over the weekend.

Posted in greenwood events, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged 2017, Beamish, hay rake, museum, Show of Agriculture, swill basket | 1 Comment

Scything wildflower meadow verge

Posted on September 8, 2017 by stevetomlin

Roadside verges are often fantastic wildflower habitat and keep their rich species mix when the meadow inside the farm wall is ‘improved’ with the use of fertilisers. Austrian scythes are a perfect tool for managing these wildflower verges as they can work in small areas and, unlike with strimmers, there’s no risk of a stone being flicked out into a passing car.

Yesterday I travelled up to the beautiful Nidderdale AONB in Yorkshire to teach a group of volunteers how to use Austrian scythes for managing their wildflower meadow areas.

I taught a Learn to Scythe course for some of the other volunteers here last year and it was terrific to see how the vegetation has improved from being well managed. This makes the scything easier so the team quickly got into formation and cleared a huge area together.

Posted in scythe courses, Scytherspace | Tagged Austrian scythe, course, meadow, roadside, verge, wildflower, Yorkshire | Leave a comment

Learn to scythe at Perth, Scotland

Posted on September 4, 2017 by stevetomlin

Photos from two fantastic days teaching beginners from eastern Scotland how to use Austrian scythes on courses hosted at Burmieston, a beautiful venue near Perth. Keejse & Olly really looked after us with a fabulous homemade lunch and refreshments throughout the day.
I’ll be teaching beginners scythe courses at Burmieston and other venues in 2018 so if you’re interested, sign up to my newsletter to receive details.