Green Woodworking: Kuksa, Stool, and Spoon
Dates: January 16-17, February 13-14, 2027
Hours: 9AM-5PM Saturday & 9AM-4PM Sunday
Deposit: $200
Remainder: $400
Full Tuition: $600
Materials Fee: $50 (paid to instructors during class)
Ages: 16 & Up.
Greenwood Winter Weekends at Roots!
Join us for a two weekend dive into greenwood working! Over the two weekends we will set out to make three different greenwood projects; a 4-legged hardwood stool, a wooden cup, and wooden spoons and utensils! All of these are a great way to jump into learning greenwood working methods, get lots of carving experience, and go away with some beautiful and useful wooden objects. It’s a class for all levels of experience.
On weekend one, day one, we’ll shave out legs and stretchers for the stool on shave horses and begin carving the top of the stool. On day two, we’ll move on to carving the wooden cup, which offers a deep dive into carving with a variety of edge tools including an axe, gouge, and carving knife.
On the second weekend, day one, we’ll head back to the stools, drilling the mortice holes, carving tenons and assembling. We’ll also finish carving the stool tops using gouges. drawknives, and spokeshaves. On day two, we will put the finishing touches on our stools including an oil finish and then move on to a relaxed day of carving wooden spoons and utensils.
One main goal of this course is to gain confidence using many tools often seen in greenwood projects like these and go away inspired to keep carving!
Also, these greenwood projects are a whole lot of fun to make and are also quite physically exerting.
We hope you can join us for the greenwood journey!
Friday Jan 15th: 1-5ish: We will be riving out leg and stretcher parts from a log for the class. Please come and join us if you would like to learn this first part of the stool making process. You will still have the opportunity to learn this in the class if you cannot make it on Friday, however rived out parts will be provided on Saturday and we will recommend that participants use most of these to make their stool for the sake of time. Please contact Will if you have any questions about this part of the process leading up to the class.
Class material fee: $50 (Covers all three projects)
Note: `As this class takes place in the depth of winter student are welcome to “camp” in the shop which is heated or the yurt which has a woodstove. They are also welcome to use the indoor bathroom and kitchen during the course.
Forest Stool
This is a great all around small stool that can be brought out in the woods or hang out inside. Perfect to sit on while making other crafts too.
This stool is a great introduction to chair making in general. We will go from log to stool and follow traditional greenwood-working techniques along the way. We’ll rive our parts out (much of this work will be done on the optional Friday) and then move to the shave horses and drawknives to shape legs and stretchers by following the grain. From here, every participant will choose their seat top to carve and then we’ll drill mortices holes and carve tenons before finally assembling on the second weekend.
Carved Wooden Cup "Kuksa"
In our second day, we will take out our carving axes, gouges, and knives to create these wooden cups or small wooden bowls. Known as the “kuksa” (Finnish), ‘Guksi” (Sami), or Kasa (Swedish), these designs are in between a small bowl and a big spoon and can be used for food or drink. They bring in many greenwood caving techniques and ideas that overlap from both spoon and bowl and are a great way to gain confidence using a carving axe, slojd knife, and other edge tools. This project is lots of fun to design and there is so much room for adding unique flair and details.
Wooden Spoons and Utensils
On the final day of our two weekends, we will dive into some spoon and utensil carving. We will start with both prepared spoon blanks as well as learning how to axe out a spoon blank. We’ll carve these using a solid knife, hook knives, and carving axes. We’ll go over multiple carving grips, learn about grain direction, and how to approach tricky parts of a spoon or any utensil you’re carving. The hope is to finish up our greenwood weekends with a relaxed and fun day carving these spoons together!