A new year of new adventures

One of my lovespoon carving buddies dropped me a note on Facebook yesterday asking to see a picture of anything interesting I might have on the work-bench at the moment.
So, I grabbed the trusty Fuji and snapped off a quick shot.   As it turns out, what's on there IS pretty interesting!!

Alas, the most noticable spoon is the broken panel spoon at the bottom of the frame.  This is a traditional Welsh style panel spoon carved from a spectacular piece of tiger-stripe maple. (Also known as 'fiddle-back' maple, it is most commonly seen on violin bodies-hence the name)  It's gorgeous wood, but the neck section is pretty weak because of the wood's interlocking grain structure.  Combine that with a plunge off the wall to a pretty hard floor below and you have a recipe for disaster.  Let's hope that my old friend Crazy Glue can come through for me and we can get this little beauty back up on display!!
There's lots of other cool stuff going on today too.  There's a couple of Celtic style spoons on the go: a lovely knotwork spoon with a stylized heart bowl, a swallow clinging to a flower that I did once before and which appears in my book, "The Fine Art of Carving Lovespoons", and a more simple panel spoon with a sweet little knot at it's crown.   I've got a couple of Breton style spoons underway as well. One is a simple straight handled spoon from black walnut and the other will be an articulating (folding) wedding spoon from pacific yew wood.   There's also a length of chain I have just carved for a Norwegian style wedding spoon and in the top left corner is an actual antique Norwegian wedding spoon dating from about 1890 or so.  Tucked away on the right hand side is a lovely little panel spoon which has been chip carved in the Tirolean style (using a pattern from the mid 1800's).  It's going to be a marvelous little spoon and I am already a little bit in love with it as it is carved from Austrian Zirbe and when I sand it, the shop smells like an Austrian Alpine workshop!  A free trip to Europe without even leaving the studio!!
There's a couple of other spoons in the frame in various stages of incompleteness, but that all should be enough to keep me busy for a little while!!  Especially since I should really be at the drafting table drawing up some sketches for my clients!!!