Sycamore lavaspoon #20

Length: 18cm (7 inches)
Bowl width: 5cm
Bowl length: 6.5cm
Finish: hemp seed oil

This big bold spalted blackthorn spoon eating has a symmertic bowl making suitable for left or right handers. It’s an exceptionally beautiful piece of blackthorn heartwoodwith dark patterns of fungal growth. However the wood is sound and the spalting has gone just far enouh for colour but not enough to soften the wood at all. The handle profile is narrower where you hold and wider at the end, that way it sits vewry sweetly in the hand.

Blackthorn is prunus family like plum and damson and shares the same exceptional colours. It usually grows as a prickly shrub on scrub land and in hedges and it’s rare to get large enough pieces to carve like this entirely from the heartwood. This was from Llangrannog in west Wales where I found it in a woodland having been cut down as much as a year earlier.

Length: 18cm (7 inches)
Bowl width: 4.3cm
Bowl length: 5.5cm
Finish: hemp seed oil

This blackthorn spoon has an asymmertic bowl making suitable for right handers only. I’ts a tough little spoon being made entirely from heartwood and there’s some lovely dark red tones in handle as well as the bowl. Note that over time the red will most likely fade to a dark brown but it’ll still be gorgeous. It’s a bit cheaper than most of my other blackthorn spoons as it was squeezed out of a shallower piece of wood and has a little less crank than usual.

Length: 18cm  (7 inches)
Bowl width: 4.2cm
Bowl length: 6cm
Finish: hemp seed oil

This elm spoon was made from a crook, a bent section of the branch, so the grain runs through the bown. Notice how there long oval rings in the bowl rather than the circles you see on some straight grained spoons. This makes the spoon stronger and the thin, slightly narrower bowl, makes it great eating spoon for main meals like rice based dishes. The elm dries very hard and should last many years of regular use.

Length: 17cm  (6 3/4 inches)
Bowl width: 5cm
Bowl length: 6.5cm
Finish: hemp seed oil

This chunky eating spoon is typical of my recent carving. The bowl is deep enough at the back to hold plenty of liquid but shallow at the front to eat off comfortably. The handle is thicker than you might be used to but oval in profile with a facetted top surface and rounded below to make it extra comfy to hold. Cherry like this with some dark growth rings doesn’t come along very often.