Of Grain and Grain  |  Tactile Explorations of Flour and Wood

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Handmade Mahogany Chopsticks

Quick Update: New Handmade Chopsticks!

September 03, 2024 by Ashley Look in Wood, Carving

Hey friends!

Just wanted to pop in with a quick update. Between boat trips at sea, I've been keeping up with a little carving, and I’m excited to share my latest project with you—these Verdant Mahogany Chopsticks. I carved them from scrap wood I had lying around, adding some wood-burned details to make them truly unique.

Verdant Mahogany Chopsticks Verdant Mahogany Chopsticks
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Verdant Mahogany Chopsticks
$33.00

I’m gearing up for a carving-heavy start to 2025, so stay tuned—there’s a lot in the works that I can’t wait to share with you. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a special gift, I’ve got these chopsticks and a few other handmade items up for grabs.

More updates coming soon!

Cheers,
Ashley

September 03, 2024 /Ashley Look
handmade chopsticks, mahogany chopsticks, wood carving, artisan crafts, sustainable gifts, handmade gifts, woodworking, reclaimed wood, unique gifts, boat life, new products, 2025 plans, handcrafted items, wood-burned details, artisan updates
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Climbing the shrouds stepping on ratlines and rat boards.

Climbing the shrouds stepping on ratlines and rat boards.

An Earth Day Miracle

April 22, 2020 by Ashley Look in Carving

In honor of Earth Day I thought I would share a quick story about my current love child… The Batten Spoon.

I found this piece of wood in a scrap pile aboard the SSV Robert C. Seamans. It’s a piece of teak but more importantly, it’s a piece of rat board. For those of you that aren’t sailors, a rat board is a piece of wood attached to a matrix of rope that allows you to climb aloft on rigged vessels. Thanks to some routine maintenance in Auckland, NZ I managed to reclaimed this scrap!

1 Rat board.jpg 2 Rat board spoon becoming.jpg 3 Rat board back.jpg 4 Rat board spoon carving.JPG 5 Rat board spoon.jpg
Batten Spoon Batten Spoon
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Batten Spoon
$97.00

Hand carved, wooden tea spoon, crafted from reclaimed Teak wood and turned into functional kitchen art.

The real story though is how this piece of wood has traveled all around the world, enduring weather to its breaking point, got discarded, and still survived. It’s kind-of a miracle. But really it’s just recycling. Happy Earth Day!



April 22, 2020 /Ashley Look
How to feed a senior, Robert C. Seamans, Batten Spoon, teak, wood, kitchen art, recycling, reclaimed wood, salvaged wood, scrap wood, rat boards, ratlines, rigging, shrouds, sailors, rigged vessels, Earth Day, miracles, handmade, one-of-a-kind, kitchen tools
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Pleiades Slotted Wooden Spoon

Pleiades Slotted Wooden Spoon

New Moon, New Spoon

March 07, 2019 by Ashley Look in Carving

I’m pretty focused on fresh starts right now and with a new moon upon us and spring around the corner, I’m starting to shift gears. Unfortunately, change doesn’t always arrive lockstep. It feels as though I’ve swapped one holding pattern for another, and waiting and time remain the constant backstory. After four years of sitting idle caregiving for my parents, they have both now passed and yet I remain. Even the dog is no longer company and so the question of home feels foreign as I remain in their house but lack everything else.

There’s an emptiness here that I hope holds space for a new beginning. However, cold starts are a struggle and the days are slowly slipping into months. It’s hard to grasp the slowness though. Whereas before the nothingness dragged, I am now consumed by the clock ticking and yet, I have nowhere to be. No job, no curfew, no obligations to be accountable to… Just me and again, this strange relationship with time.

The Pleiades Slotted Wooden Spoon is available in the shop. Click here.

The Pleiades Slotted Wooden Spoon is available in the shop. Click here.

If you read my father’s obituary then you know Space was a big deal for this household. Like, as in “lunar landing/ satellite telemetry ” big deal. Growing-up with a human calculator was no easy task for a girl afraid of math. But somewhere along the way I gathered the significance of measurement relative to his passion for Space. I remember him giving me a gyroscope once as a gift and forever trying to get it to spin upon a string. Only now, as an adult, am I making sense of it. In watching this gyroscope video and seeing one in action do I realize how planetary this gift was and his own interest in celestial movement.

Time often accounts for change and those changes parlay seasons. And now, amid all the change that lays so heavy in my air, I am reminded that the seasons of life can account for nothingness and without much attention, life just passes by. So, if you have ever come to this page and wondered about the Full Moon Baking Club or my obsession with time it’s probably worth noting that the space-time continuum is some complicated mathematical model that I’ll never truly understand but thanks to the gyroscope, I can trust that this time will pass. Nature is cyclical… Seasons are cyclical… And if there is ever a clock worth trusting, it’s not the one that tells the time; it’s one that tells where we are in the cycle.

It’s understandable that the seasons of life can be difficult and if you are anything like me, you might find yourself far from one that brings a good harvest. The growing ain’t good right now cause I have nothing much to sow. I’m just now sorting seeds. It’s not realistic to assume life will magically fall into place. But time itself is a kind of magic and so a little intentional seed planting now will surely grow into something later. What better time keeper than the moon? (I think my dad would agree.) And what better way to track change than pursue a craft? Time lends itself to the artisan maker and good craftsmanship can take a lifetime. For the moment all I have is seeds. Time will tell but until then… new moon, new spoon!

March 07, 2019 /Ashley Look
how to feed a senior, Pleiades Slotted Wooden Spoon, hand carved, Handmade, reclaimed wood, woodworking, Made in the USA, sustainably made, locally sources, wooden spoons, slotted spoon, caregiving, fresh start, time, time management, tracking time, gyroscope, seasons, clock, Full Moon Baking Club, new moon, new spoon, Nothingness, artisan maker, craftsmanship
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