Buttons! We've got buttons! Really great buttons!

After delving into the Spalted Maple and Holly the results show how nicely they came out: I really like how the bandsaw left the texture in the Holly. We also had some of the Cocobolo in smaller pieces. Again, we kept it because the color is AMAZING! Good Cocobolo does not come cheaply. It is much more rare now but we have a supplier that is ethically responsible and buys up unproductive coffee plantations and is replanting them with Cocobolo trees. Thus, there is a source that is renewing all the time. These buttons are great: And the larger buttons:

Mahogany real Guitar Grade Mahogany

We are very fortunate here in North Eastern PA. We aren't very far from the Legendary Martin Guitars. Through a friend we came to have some mahogany that was left over from the beautiful craftsmanship of the Martin Guitar Company. If you find yourself in PA, go see Martin: http://www.martinguitar.com/about-martin/visit-us.html. For our next set of shave bowls, we have used this mahogany to create a classically elegant shave bowl. You can see the beautiful grain in the bowl top. This bowl should grace the bathroom vanity not to be hidden in a cupboard. Here is a shave brush also made out of mahogany for a matched set. The brush is perfect for wet shaving. Yes, life is beautiful. Choose to have beautiful things in your life. If you are interested in bring these home please visit our Etsy Shop: Lovgren & Daughter. https://www.etsy.com/shop/LovgrenandDaughter.

Magic Mushrooms and their Piney Friends

the same mushrooms we are familiar with from Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are the bright red ones. In our part of North America we don't have those naturally occurring. We do have a variation which is a lighter color with an orangey peachy top. They start out as little bumps. Then they look like a stalk and deflated top. Here's one I found wandering over some pine tree roots. . Later the mushroom raises it's top and grows a bit more about 6 inches. They are really beautiful. Since it grows on the roots of pine trees, I'm thinking the pine trees are about at the end of their lives. Well played, Mother Nature.

Spalting in the buff

We use a lot of spalted wood. Wood that goes through a biological process once it has fallen or has been cut. Hurricane Sandy did a lot of natural re-decoration even up the hills of PA. So, you have wood and you have some wood that has been "maturing", readying itself to return to the soil. To break down the cellulose in wood, we rely on fungi, bacteria and insects to help move a tree into entropy. The come in and eat and feed and breakdown those tough cell walls. The fungi also grow in very different shapes and have of different types all up and down the genus. . and bless these natural processes in their infinite combination that can recycle lumber and create such beauty. Thanks Mother Nature - good job, we rely on you!

Graceful Nakashima

There are w few woodworkers that are so revered as George Nakashima. He was a Japanese-American woodworker who use great slabs of wood in their most natural state to combine them with the foundation that creates a chair or a table or a desk. This is one of the rooms in his home. His trademark addition is a butterfly joint to stabilizes wood. While they are necessary to stop wood from cracking apart as it ages, they are also beautiful. His daughter continues his work at their Pennsylvania home. A more complete picture can be found at their website: http://www.nakashimawoodworker.com/ from which I borrowed the photos as an example to help educate those people who pass by the blog. What the Nakashima's imbue their work with the Zen-like lines that are calm and natural. We are blessed the such a talented woodworker lived among us. We are also indebted to his daughter, Mira who carries on in her father's tradition while moving forward into the 21st century.

Button, button, who's got the button?

Here are some of the first experiments with buttons Okay, tried some different approaches. The Lighter ones are holly and I like the texture the wide toothed bandsaw gave them. I like the large spalted Maple because they remind me of picture jasper a naturally occurring sedimentary rock. I like them. Now I'm off to design some button cards and holes in the buttons. Very excited to add them to the Etsy shop. Cool. Buttons are cool.

Branching Out

SO we've got some really interesting pieces of wood that are too small for the projects we work on. But there is still a lot of great wood out there. One of our trees a stately Maple was severely damaged during Hurricane Sandy and there are branches galore. We also have the annual pruning of the Apple trees: And some trimming of the Japanese Maples which give us this beautiful leaves in the fall. So we've been thinking about adding wooden buttons and glass coasters to the products we currently make. Stayed tuned for the updates as the new projects take shape. Saw dust awaits! Kristin

Mr. Krenov’s knives and planes adhered to the natural contours of the wood and the patterns of its grain. He loved curves, and was known for creating door panels with concave, billowing shapes, like sails in the wind. David Welter, the shop technician for the woodworking program, was Mr. Krenov’s credo “that the work had life in it.” “It wasn’t about showing off technique as much as about having a personality in the work,” Mr. Welter said in a telephone interview last week. “He worked with material rather than on material; it wasn’t a matter of conquering the wood. He had just a killer instinct for wood combination, the colors and textures, melding them to make works with an elegant simplicity.” http://jameskrenov.com/images/kremarbl_white.jpg http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-james-krenov-11905 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/us/20krenov.html?_r=0