Limewood is a great wood to carve with. It is a hardwood with the feel of softwood. Really easy to carve details into and holds the crisp edges well. As the grain runs straight it very rarely warps so is ideal for serving boards, cheese boards, spoons etc. So imagine my excitement when I got my hands on a big chunk of the stuff. I carved out a few spoons, butter knives, scoops. You know the usual. But as I dug deeper and deeper into the timber I found incredible patterns along the grain. The plane came out and after lots of elbow grease I had the beginnings of my new favourite board. Is it my favourite because of the pattern? Somewhat. Is it because it was fun to carve? Perhaps. But my absolute favourite thing was how the wood had hidden this pattern from prying eyes. I could so easily have used the whole lump up with spoons and scoops, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing of course, and never noticed this shading. That find just reinforced my love for carving and working with wood. The secrets each lump of timber holds make every time I sit down with my carving gear an exciting and invigorating experience.
This delightful board is now enjoying a sunny life in Australia… That’s not code for something sinister, it was bought by a couple of wonderful Australians and travelled back with them to Adelaide. Will it bring as much joy to them as it did to me when creating it? Whose to say. But one thing is for sure, this is a beautiful piece of wood.