Wooden Spoon

     I made this wooden spoon from a beautiful piece of bird's eye maple. Spoon carving is a very satisfying and relaxing process. I am not sure of exactly how long it took me to make this spoon, but I would estimate about 12-15 hours.
     I learned to carve spoons about ten years ago from my friend Hannah. Of course, these first spoons were not very practical, since they were so bulky, due to my inexperience - they never would have fit in one's mouth. My first spoons were made of pine, which is a soft wood and is therefore much easier to carve. Since then, I have made many more spoons and worked my way up to harder wood. Bird's eye maple is especially difficult because each of the bird's eyes (the dots on the wood) is a knot. Knots are harder to cut through, causing the carving to take a longer time, but I think the beautiful patterns are worth the effort.

Another Winter Knitting Project

Another one of my winter projects has been knitting mason jar cozys. I like to drink tea from a mason jar, but because it isn't insulated, my tea cools off too fast. This knitted cozy has been the perfect solution. If you want to make one click here for the pattern. I thought that this pattern was great and very clever! I did a few things differently than it said, Firstly, I didn't want my cozy to go all the way over the top of my mason jar like the one that the pattern, so I stopped kitting when it was a little bit shorter than the pattern said. I also made my cozy a little bigger than my jar by using a heavier yarn that the pattern suggested so that I could felt it to shrink it down to be the right size. This made the cozy thicker and kept it from stretching out every time I used it.

Garden Plan

My garden plan for next year. I am growing some of the same vegetables but also trying some new things. I am most excited about peanuts, wheat, and sweet potatoes. Seedsavers has a really great garden planner that is fun to use and ends up looking great! you can see my garden plan here.

On a walk a few days ago, I came across some really beautiful ice crystals.

Herbal Salve

My sister and I have started making herbal salve and selling it to people in town. So far we have been making an all purpose salve made with calendula, plantain, and yarrow.  We also are making calendula lip balm. In the spring we plan to grow cayenne peppers and arnica. we will use the cyan to make a salve for sore muscles and the arnica will make a salve for bruises.

Dog Sweater

As a Christmas gift for some friends of mine, I knitted a sweater for their dog (my dog is much too big and fluffy for a coat, but Maisy, who is a Jack Russell Terrier, is the perfect candidate).  The sweater turned out cute, and hopefully it will keep her warm for the winter.

Making My New Guitar

I have been working on this make your own guitar kit that I bought from Grizzly Industrial Inc. The reason that I wanted to do a guitar kit is because I wanted a chance to wood burn on the guitar.

All of the parts that came in the guitar kit. (picture from Grizzly's website.)

I thought that it would be really fun and unique to have the wood burning on the guitar. I first drew the design on paper, then traced it onto the guitar and then burned it.