SPOON # 10 - Sunday 10th March

This week's spoon is an ash spoon, carved in what I call the 'Swedish style'. This means it has a more square-shaped bowl and is fairly shallow, making it in my thinking more like a scoop or shovel. It's slightly cranked and lightly ornamented.

What's interesting about this spoon is the grain pattern of this particular piece of ash - it is in tight waves rather than straight lines. I don't know why, common sense tells me it either grew under stress or suffered some kind of disease which affected the growth of the tree. Whatever the reason, it's the most amazing grain pattern, giving the wood a kind of striped effect from a distance, but close up, having intricate and delicate, almost spirals of grain.

I made a few spoons from this wood before. This spoon was made from the last piece, which I saved from the wood pile. It was very dry and as a result hard to carve, but I simply couldn't bring myself to burn such a beautiful piece of wood, knowing I might never get anything like it again.

Apologies that I couldn't get as clear a close up as I'd like - macro photography is not my personal forte - but I think you can just see the grain pattern if you look carefully.