November Update

On the 9th I went over to Folklore Village in Dodgeville to run a carving workshop. Folklore Village is a beautiful little folk school, and this was my second workshop there. It was fun, I always enjoy teaching. I get to meet fun new people who are excited about learning a new skill. Plus it gets me out of the shed. A little face-to-face human interaction is good for me.

A couple of participants at Folklore Village

I also had my monthly Fjallraven event. I’ve been a brand ambassador with them for a few months now. On the 20th I was in my local store helping them relaunch their ‘Waxing Wednesdays’ where you can bring in your Fjallraven gear to be waterproofed with their Greenland wax. It was a pretty quiet evening, so I took the opportunity to give the staff members there a quick carving tutorial, carving a little butter spreader with one of the Gransfors Bruks axes they stock. When no one was looking I snuck my work into the display case. I wonder if anyone has enquired about it?

Cheap as chips

I’ll be back in the Madison Fjallraven store on the December 3rd, running an after-hours workshop on carving with a knife. If you’re Madison based an interested, there’s still a few spots left. Tickets here.

If you’re looking for more in depth instruction, I’ve got another spoon carving workshop on December 8th. More details here.

Also in December I’ll be at the Crafty Fair and Good Day Markets. So this month has seen me making stock for that. Stock making has included a new product - birch bark stars. My good friend Derek came over to give me a refresher on how to make them since the last time I made a handful of them was a couple of years ago. With a haul of birch bark sitting in the shed and Christmas approaching, I thought stars would be a festive addition to my line up.

As per usual, I set myself massively overly optimistic goal of about 60 stars. Lord knows where I pulled that number from. It’s ridiculous. I think I may have done some back of the envelope calculations based on how long it took Derek and I to make a few stars. But there was so much wrong with number. Let’s me walk you through some of the (now) more obvious problems.

One star requires four strips of birch bark. I was planning on mainly using 1 inch wide strips, which need to be 20 inches long. If one star requires a 4”x 20” sheet of birch bark, 60 stars needs a 20 inch wide sheet of birch bark 20 feet long. And that’s with zero waste for holes, knots, my inability to cut in a straight line and other inevitable issues.

After four and a half hours of slicing birch bark strips I realised 60 stars was probably unattainable. To be honest, after about two minutes I was having doubts. The birch bark was harvested about five months ago. I kept it in as optimal conditions as I could, but it had dried out a little and the edges had curled in a bit. To rejuvenate it I gave it a lovely soak in a hot bath. Worked wonders. The bark came out of the water much more pliable and easier to work. For an entire 3 seconds. As it dried it really wanted to curl up, so laying it flat for a precise slice was not easy. I eventually got into a rhythm of sorts, contorting myself to include a knee in holding down the bark. With aching fingers I ended up with enough strips for 23 stars. Not too shabby, but only getting a third of the way to my frankly insane target still felt a little like a failure.

For those of you who haven’t had much experience with birch bark, it’s a fantastic material. Very pliable, pretty strong, super waterproof. Great stuff. Like the wood within the tree, the bark grows in layers. The outermost layers of birch bark tend to come away from the rest of it quite easily. As you get deeper into the bark it may or may not continue to delaminate. As I was about to find out, a big chunk of the bark I was using wasn’t best suited to stars.

These stars are most often made from paper or ribbon. Using much thicker birch bark made it a bit of a struggle. With hindsight I should have set that thicker bark aside for more containers, which need a little more durability than a hung ornament. Live and learn. So I’ve got some lovely and thin bark that weaves easily into stars and some shoe leather that makes ornaments that could probably survive the apocalypse. Regardless, both are pretty.

This month I’ve also been having some fun filming stuff. I’ve made a bunch of short clips on carving techniques that are being posted on my Facebook and Instagram. I want to do a lot more with my Youtube channel as well, but I’m having a bit of a hard time with it. I’ve been surprised to find that I’m a little bit of a perfectionist with videography. The fact that I’m not very good at it is at awkward odds with my perfectionism. I think it comes from being a bit of a film buff. I love watching movies. I really like inventive cinematography and for some reason get disappointed when I can’t replicate the feel of a multi million dollar blockbuster by using a GoPro and iMovie. Can’t understand it.

Being the director, cameraman, actor and editor might have something to do with it. I’ve shot a lot of footage over the past month but have been a little disappointed by much of it. There are a whole bunch of little movies I’d like to do, from the simple to the complex. It’s something I’m excited about, and i think it’ll be a fun avenue to explore more behind the scenes of making wooden things, as well as some silly stuff that’s floating around my weird mind. I’m 100% guilty of letting perfect be the enemy of done. I’ve got my December workshop and Christmas craft shows to focus on at the moment, but I’ll get back in the director’s chair / behind the camera / in front of the lens / in the editing suite later in December. Until then, feel free to peruse my current collection of videos on Youtube.