Crafty Manolo

via Blackbird Blog

Scrimshaw is a controversial craft, and rightly so, considering its best-known materials. Whalebone and elephant ivory are scarce and getting scarcer. the good news is that using them for scrimshaw has been outlawed for a generation. The bad news is that many people don’t realize that most current scrimshaw is done with either heritage ivory (reused antique materials, such as broken ivory pieces or fossilized ivory) or with new, imaginative choices such as ostrich eggshells, tagua nuts and even man-made materials like acrylic.

The two gorgeous pieces above, obviously, date from the days when whalers on their way home from the hunt would pass some of the time by making amazing pieces of folk art for their loved ones back home. Obviously I’m not in favor of continued whale hunting, or the killing of elephants for their teeth. I’m glad both materials have been banned.

Once the work is divorced from the slaughter of endangered animals, though, it’s a rather spectacular craft. And made with sustainable materials, it’s still thriving around the world.

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via All Things Marbling

I adore marbled paper. I have older books that I caress because the endpapers delight me so. Yes, I’m a crafts geek. You knew that about me.

But my dears, marbling does not begin and end with endpapers (delicious though they may be, and frequently are!). Endpapers are just on option for marbling.

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Take my spoon, Blodwyn

Make it soon, Blodwyn

The valley knows the way I feel today

Take my spoon, Blodwyn

Make it soon, Blodwyn

Before some other spoon takes you away

Blodwyn by Badfinger

Okay, so now that I’ve referenced The Tick and mildly obscure British rock bands launched by The Beatles, let’s get down to what they have to do with crafts.

via

This is an antique Welsh love spoon. The one above dates from circa 1900.

Nobody knows for sure precisely how the tradition got started, but as far as anyone knows, it started in Wales, though they have also been carved in Scandinavia and parts of Eastern Europe. The earliest known example dates back to the seventeenth century, but they are made today by artists all over the world.

The idea is that when a young man falls in love with a girl, he should sit down and carve a spoon for her using various symbols to express his hopes for their life together. If the girl accepts the spoon, they are engaged. When they get married, the spoon hangs in a place of honor in their home. There’s no particular word of what happens to the spoon if the lady rejects it. Perhaps the gentleman uses it to eat a heaping helping of crow.

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