First Carved Lovespoon

[jillsy]

Thanks to all who gave me advice on trying to carve a lovespoon. I just finished my very first one today and hopefully, the picture attached.

I found this to be extremely challenging, especially since I only had the front side to go by. There was no pattern for the back and since I wanted to carve in the round, I had to mirror-image the front. It got so tricky, I almost gave up a few times.

I'm definitely going to try more, but am looking for simpler patterns right now. Most I see are very intricate. Celtic knots are my favorite!

[DanJohnson]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

That is a well carved spoon. Nice work.

[Magicman]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

Hi Jillsey
A very nice spoon, there are 5 or 6 spoon patterns in the current WCI.

Larry

[Claude]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

Nice spoon, Jillsy! Your mirror imaging seems to have worked!

Claude

[drhandrich]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

that does look nice. aren't you glad you did a mirror image now?

[Ray S. S.]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

That looks pretty nice, Jillsy, I enjoy doing the Celtic knots, too. I never use a back
pattern. After the outline is all cut, you do all the woven parts in the front. Then the way I do it is to hold one of the loops at the edge and look at the strand that lays on the top. Then, when concentrating on that loop, carefully turn it over and mark it with a pencil to
be opposite on the back side. I do a couple more on that particular strand the same way. That makes it like a basket weave and each one is over and under on both sides. That is a little slow going for a bit, but after doing 2 or 3, you have the correct pattern to keep going and marking the whole back with continually marking for over and under.
I hope this will help you now by just using the front as the pattern.

You have done well on your first one. Now I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.

Ray

[joepaulbutler]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

Jillsy, nice spoon, I know this summer I'll be doing some rough out work in the garge to have some spoon to work on next winter, I think they're neat, good work . . . JoeB

[copeau]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

It looks fine.
If you like a pattern but it's too intricate, you can sometimes simplify , remove some parts of the design etc.

[Brian T]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

Good finish on a tough carving! Glad you stuck with it.

Fox Chapel Publishing (WCI parent) has several really good books on spoon carving.
Spoon Carving, Revised Second Edition, is $16.99 and just out.

Somewhere, I have a text on Celtic Love Spoon carvings with a big index of design elements and their meanings.
Lots of talk about various wood choices and techniques.

[jillsy]

Re: First Carved Lovespoon

Sorry for the delayed thank you, but this is the first time I can get into the new website, which by the way, looks great!

Totally interested in making more spoons and designs!