Salad Servers

I was trying to come up with a new piece to make which would not take as much time as a spoon but still be useful and artistic. 

Simple Salad Servers!

(Walnut and cherry)

(Curly, spalted maple)

Each server is hand rasped along the edges to make them smooth, and, just like the spoons and boards, I like to use my carving knife to widen the drilled hole for hanging.
  
Then they are sanded, sanded, sanded.....

The shimmery, striped, curly maple servers are from a maple tree about 20 minutes from my house. It is the most interesting wood I have worked with and is both curly and spalted. 

Curly maple is not a type of maple but a grain pattern that is found in some maples. The effect is a wave pattern that looks to be three dimensional and 'moves' as the wood is turned. 

It's possible that this is my favourite wood so far. Reminds me of something else I love...

Cherry board for serving fresh sage scones

This is the last board to come from the nicest, thickest piece of cherry found at a backyard mill in Sylvan. The board was finished right when the scones came out of the oven so we put it right to work! Certainly not planning to blog much about recipes because I am certainly not a cook but these turn out great every time and smell amazing. I've switched it up a bit from the the recipe found here: Fresh Sage Drop Scones

2 cups spelt or whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 cup sharp cheddar cheese

1/4 cup minced green onions

2 tablespoons fresh herbs on hand or

2-3 teaspoons sage and apple stuffing seasoning mix from Epicure (yum!)

1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Combine flour and next three ingredients. Stir in cheese , onions and herbs. Add milk and stir just until moist. (I needed to add a bit more flour so the dough was not too sticky.) Drop dough onto backing sheet 2 inches apart. (This makes 8 scones.) Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until golden brown. 

Cherry might appear a bit boring before it gets oiled but it is very beautiful after all the sanding is finished. 

Pure...plain and simple. Real. 

Maybe it would be good if we all tried to be a bit like sanded cherry!

Loose leaf tea spoon

No spoon should be limited to one single purpose but when I am designing a new shape, I try to think of a task that it will be best suited for. This little spoon/scoop is carved from a thick piece of cherry which helps me get a curved handle and a deep bowl. 

I was thinking of a tea or coffee scoop for this one and also have it measured out to two tablespoons.

When we plant herbs in the garden, watch them grow, weed them, cut them, dry them, and make tea mixes with them, we really need to reward all that effort by scooping them with something fine. Something to match all that effort. If your tea was not home grown in the backyard, family garden plot... it was by someone! 

~ Enjoy the simple pleasures of the day ~

A few things on the go

Trying to be productive before the beautiful weather calls me outside instead of to my carving knife. Here a few things that are on the go here at different stages. 

These two new long handled spoons in cherry and walnut have very shallow bowls making them useful for stirring and mixing. The little fellow is a cherry two tablespoon scoop with a curved handle. And happy to find another walnut board with a knot in the shape of a heart. ❤️

Hand chiseled bow tie joint

Bow tie joints (or butterfly joints) are a decorative way to repair or strengthen a piece of wood with a split. This is a very old, thick piece of cherry...incredibly beautiful with all its natural splitting and knots. To prevent it from splitting further, and to give it more stability, I added a bow tie inlay cut from walnut. 

Not going to pretend this was easy. 

I felt like I had climbed Mount Everest when I finally had it chiseled out and placed in. (A little obsessed to get it right since my first try at this on a board is now laying as ashes in the bottom of our wood stove.)

Cherry Dust

Finding cherry to be so pure and smooth in this new scoop. It will be ready for oil soon but I wanted to take a few pictures before it was all shined up.

Beautiful pile of cherry curls gouged out to make the bowl.

Sanding and then sanding and then sanding....

Wood and Pottery...

....the perfect combination! 

(Long handled cherry serving spoon in Miller Lake Pottery bowl.)

Sanding

Enjoyed most of yesterday morning with almost uninterrupted time sanding which was so refreshing... covered from head to toe in sawdust but still refreshing! Raw, un-oiled cherry and walnut roughly sanded and waiting for five more and a bath between each one. The hardest part is over though. :)