From time to time I get together with my mate Phil Bradley, who is a terrific basketmaker, for a day trying something out. Sometimes he is showing me, sometimes I show him and sometimes neither of us know what we’re doing. They are wonderful days and in my opinion, extremely important for craftspeople. All too often we are working alone and stick to what we know. There’s a kind of fear of trying new things, not just of failure but of wasting valuable time that could have been spent making familiar work. Taking time out to experiment and spent time with other makers should be a regular activity for more of us, it can stimulate all kinds of ideas, leading to new products or simply reinvigorate creativity and curiosity for a material.
This time Phil wanted to learn about steam bending wood. Susan & Ian, who are also basketmakers came along too which made four times the fun. Steambending is actually quite easy; make an insulated box, fill it with a steady supply of steam (in my case from a wallpaper stripper) and put your wood inside until it’s hot and then bend it!
The key to success is preparation; getting your materials ready, building a suitable former and having plenty of hands or clamps available as you’ve not much time while the wood is hot to get it bent into shape.
Phil has been doing some chairmaking recently and has designs on a double bow windsor but for this session we were doing fairly easy bends in round hazel for basket handles. Once we’d got a system sorted they soon stacked up. You could probably produce the same by bending fresh sticks freehand but the steam will make these set much better, holding the tight corners for a more distinctive shape.
In between work we spent the day (and evening) looking at the birch bark boxes I’ve been making recently, discussing the show season and catching up on personal news too. Can’t wait for the next.
A new addition was the Spoon Carving Chair which was occupied by various makers and gave people the opportunity to watch the likes of Fritiof Runhall, Jarrod Stone-Dahl and others carving at their normal pace. This is very different from seeing folk carving when they’re teaching and gives a better insight into their actual methods and way of working.
Also making it’s first appearance was the Spoonfest oven which was built as a course in the days running up to the weekend under the guidance of Martin Hazell, seen here giving it his blessings. The pizzas were certainly delicious.
There are times when you want to have your own craft course on a 1-to-1 basis.
Although Mike, Malcolm and Charlie had come for different reasons they all wanted to spend their time learning more about carving wooden spoons. Over the past 5 years or so I’ve seen spoon carving really take off in popularity which is fantastic as it’s a wonderful introduction to working with wood, a great way to learn to use simple tools and the possibilities of design are endless. I’ve been carving since 2000 and teaching since 2006, increasingly offering opportunities for improvers to develop their skills at events like Spoonfest alongside my regular 
All three had some previous experience but were wanting to get a proper understanding of how to carve so we started with some axe and knife techniques on practise blanks. I think everyone can benefit from going back to basics and spending time just making cuts for practise without thinking of making something. That way you can be more daring and positive in your motions since there’s no fear of ‘getting it wrong’ and your whole focus is on technique rather than the spoon. Mike in particular was impressed with how far it’s possible to carve a spoon using just the axe, making the knifework much easier. He has a house and woodland in France but comes over to see his beloved Liverpool FC play so tied in two days of spoon and some fan bird carving with the trip.
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