Log Lady

This is a whittled reproduction of the bow-tie that the Log woman is wearing in Twin Peaks.

Pen-bird

The head is whittled from a small left-over piece of lime-wood.

Pattern in the Wood

I have often looked at the partial repetition of shapes in plywood and theorised about how they got there. Obviously, at 4' wide, a ply board is not just a cross section of a tree. It turns out that my guess was about right.

BTWC III (Twin Peaks)

"There's something about a lady and a log..."

--David Lynch

Photocopy handout for the 3rd meeting

The third meeting of BTWC was rather busy, and although there were quite a few first-time whittlers at this meeting there were hardly any cuts. One could ascribe this unusual alertness to the double combination of home-made cherry-pie, donuts, and strong black coffee, which were served in line with the Twin Peaks theme of the evening.

David Lynch has long explored the transcendental possibilities of wood and the forest, never more explicitly than in Twin Peaks. Whether it be the Log Lady's talking log, trouble at the mill, or the black lodge situated among majestic Douglas Firs, Lynch has limned a special place in the world of timber. Our club has produced its share of owls too, which mediate between the world of souls embedded in wood and that of humans.

As the soundtrack from the show played, we were happy to welcome guests from as far away as New York and Japan. Writer and drummer Oran Canfield juggled five lemons while Ben T introduced the world to the BTWC via Chat Roulette.

Around midnight, people made their way home.

Donut by Billy

More work by the Members...

Wonderful whittling by new member Little Jack

Donut by Billy

Another good first-time work by newcomer Shelly

Resting bird in peach-stone by Ksenia

Not sure who's this is. I would guess Jamie's since it has blood on it.

Pineapple by John

Finished owl by Jacob

Mushroom by Jack

Gery's medieval monster from the back.

Rihanna by Ben T.

A finished head by Amy

Cut of the week

The only "real" cut of the last meeting. It was performed by Jamie. There was some other smaller ones, but not worth spending plaster on besides John´s who stabbed himself in the nail.

BTWC II

Photocopy handout for 2nd meeting

It has been some time since the occasion of the second meeting of the Bleeding Thumb Whittling Club, but we feel it cannot go unremarked upon. The sharp knives were out in force with members bringing some interesting models, including Mark's scooping blade from Mora, with which he crafted an excellent spoon.


This time the wood was excellent. Having cut their teeth cleaning green wood of its bark and other such rudiments of whittling, our members were now able to get involved with some German lime-wood. The staple of German figure carvers for centuries, lime is a medium hardness deciduous wood with a heady citric scent. Whilst somewhat prone to cleaving when cut close to the direction of the grain, when carved across the grain beautiful rich patterns are exposed. We now have a useful stockpile of lime-wood for upcoming meetings.

When the club was finished, we swept up and kept the aromatic chip shavings; one day, we will burn them in a ritual.

Apple Wood

Driving through Exmoor, we were scanning the landscape for the characteristic crooked and spindly branches of apple-trees. Somerset is an area known for its cider and apple-orchards so we came prepared with a foldable saw in the hope of picking up some apple-wood for the BTWC. Next to the ruins of an ancient abbey there was a little lonely apple-tree that caught our attention. It had not grown enough fibrous mass to be of any interest to us so we decided to look for some wood in the forest up the hill.

There was plenty of muddy, bug-covered wood lying around on the ground near a creek and we sawed off some pieces just for fun before proceeding into the thick foliage of the ivy covered forest, still with apple in mind. The type of wood that we had encountered just outside was growing here in abundance. It was a weird kind of parasitic tree that grew along the trunks of other trees or anything else that it could hold of, sometimes just stretching out its arms into thin air in the hope of getting hold of a new victim. The strangling attitude of the ivy and this tree gave us a very bad vibes so we backed out of the forest and went back to the car to try out the pieces we had with a knife. The wood turned out to be really crap and it seemed evil through and through. It was left in a muddy puddle as we made off with haste.

We stopped at an orchard, looked at a giant hog, had some eggs and asked for advice on finding apple-wood without any informative reply. After driving around without coming across any suitable trees, we gave up and followed a sign to a local attraction; the Bakelite Museum in Williton. The museum which is run by Patrick Cook in an old watermill, contains hundreds maybe thousands bakelite objects. Bakelite is the first successful synthetic plastic to be produced on a large scale and the collection reflects the multiple uses of this now obsolete material (there was even an old Mora Knife with a nice bakelite sheath on display).




On leaving the museum, with the West Country light failing, we saw a felled apple branch in a sheep field. Ample in girth and respectable in length, there was surely 25 kilos of good core wood to be had. Through careful negotiations with knowledgeable locals, we learnt that the owner of the field was also the proprietor of the Bakelite Museum. Having gained his permission, we scaled the fence and began to saw the mass into manageable chunks, while friendly sheep watched on with a peaceful demeanor not familiar from previous experience of the nervous herd animals.


The largest log is over two feet in length and half a foot in diameter at its smallest. Others are more manageable. The pieces are currently resting, seasoning in the cool hall outside the BTWC premises, their exposed ends sealed up with emulsion paint to prevent the cracking associated with too rapid drying.

Cut of the week

The cut came in on a parallel angle to the finger so it is not deep but the area affected is quite big.

Inuit

The Inuit people are known for their simple small carving made out of ivory or stone. Sometimes these small figurines were worn as amulets for good luck when hunting or used in shamanic rituals. The polar-bear is a particularly popular motif and there is a whole strain of carvings referred to as 'dancing bears' where the animal is depicted in an animated or playful state.