• Events and Displays,  wood turning

    Gŵyl Ceiau Teifi / Cardigan Quays Festival.

    Gŵyl Ceiau Teifi / Cardigan Quays Festival has been held for several years on the banks of the river Teifi in Cardigan on August bank holiday Saturday. This year the organisers wanted to make a special effort to provide a space for local makers. One of the organisers, Nick Newland of www.swallowboats.com said “We would like to celebrate this talent by providing a place where makers can meet and demonstrate to our community and to visitors what a great place Cardigan is for creative careers, and incidentally, where makers can exchange ideas and discuss mutual problems.” I was very pleased to have a stand at Gŵyl Ceiau Teifi / Cardigan Quays…

  • wood turning

    Yew Wood

    Yew wood offers interesting and challenging work and it is possible to be rewarded by the most beautiful bowls. My last blog about Yew was more about the trees than the wood so here are just a few examples of how Yew wood bowls can look. The purple along one side of this bowl is where a nail had been in the Yew tree. This causes the beautiful colour. Often the metal causes too much of a problem to be able to continue to turn the piece since as soon as the turning tool (gouge) touches the metal it blunts it. I managed to get the nail out and continue…

  • Wild Life Garden

    At Home, The Future

    As a woodworker it obviously makes a lot of sense that I love wood – its texture, figuring, infinite variety of subtle changes within the same species let alone between different trees, the varied challenges thrown up by environmental factors during growth, etc… However, does it make so much sense that I also love trees? Surely if I love trees I don’t want to see them chopped down? True, but they are not chopped down for me. In fact much of the wood I use comes from trees that will still be growing for a long time to come and I’ll blog about that in the future. What I wanted…