Baguette Boards

Trying out a new, longer design for these two boards. The perfect size for baguettes or serving sandwiches. Always amazed at the beautiful lines found in the pieces after sanding and oiling. Dark, elegant walnut and a lighter, detailed spalted maple!

Whittling and Rasping

Shaping the cheeseboard handles is one of my favourite steps. I really want to stay away from a 'machined' look which I would get if I just used a router for the edges. Using the rasp and carving knife gives me an ability to narrow in on the handles and give some shape to the holes. This gives each piece it's own unique, hand carved look and feel.

Handmade

Enjoying slower days during this Christmas season. Sort of becoming a goal to fill my kitchen with all things handmade....wood, stone, clay, food! 

Spalted beauty and rugged walnut

A little bit of productivity here as we have a couple weeks off for Christmas break. The spalted maple turned out to be very interesting. The lines and knots keep me gazing at it now that it is all soft and smooth.

This new walnut board is another favourite. After the wood is sanded five times with a higher grit paper each time, it turns out silky smooth. An elegant wood. This one has a great little knot on one corner which reminds me that even though it is worthy to display fine cheese, it was recently a big old black walnut standing tall for years and years in a bush a few minutes down the road. Love that!

Walnut Cooking/Serving Spoon

A new design. This walnut spoon has a shallow, gouged bowl that would be perfect for stirring and cooking. It is smooth and shiny and would also look beautiful as a serving spoon. Walnut still sits at the top of my list of beautiful wood!

Rainy Day

Thrilled to begin work on a couple spalted maple cheeseboards today. Usually not crazy about rainy, grey days but lots of new boards stacked up and ready to work on! I will always love walnut but this wood is so lovely to look at.

Diamond in the Rough.

Another beautiful piece of wavy walnut this time cut into a square. I had high hopes for this piece and enjoyed working with a new shape...until I sanded it down and found a hard, white stone/mineral? embedded into the wood. My critics (family) suggest an end to the board at that time but I think it still has lots of potential. It reminds me of a large chunk of chocolate! Will be a nice serving or chopping board and I'll be packing it up for a friend shortly. :)

Spalted Maple

After a long while of hunting down spalted wood, we came in contact with a fellow who had some fresh cut spalted maple. Wood that is spalted has blackish, irregular lines running through it that is produced from rotting. It adds amazing character to pieces when carved! I need to let my new boards dry for a year or so but couldn't help carving out a scoop to see how it turned out.

This maple is still wet but unbelievably hard! I can't imagine how I'll get the knife through it in a year when it is dry...it might be turned into boards instead of spoons. :) I'll hang onto this scoop to see how it dries and make sure no cracks develop. A handy kitchen scoop to add to my collection!

The butter like curls of this wood are deceiving. Very strong!