The Woodland Haberdasher

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The Woodland Haberdasher

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Wild crafts and workshops https://wakelyns.co.uk/haberdashery/

30/10/2026

The first wave 🌊🥄

Round definitely a theme of this (and the next batch, currently drying, too shiny to photograph [pig spoon in the next batch, so cute ❤️🐷])!

So many lovely little bits of spalt and rot on these that give them all a bit of individuality. They'll all colour up a bit differently as they age too - the Plum will lean into the orange, but the Hawthorn will be creamier, and the markings on all of them will get more defined.

Silver Birch spalted spatula - I did actually finish this one about a month ago as I wanted to take it to the NCFed Gathering but it is a sister to the other Birch bits in this batch. Tool finish for a change, and super spalty!
Gang of 4 - Hawthorn from Manor Farm. A little bit spalt starting to speckle on the spoon handle (spoon bowl wafer thin, very pleased with this). Spatula got lots of the raspberry ripple markings on the back, and they all share a bit of live and dead wood which is nice (from a fallen branch).

Silver Birch spatula and holey spoon. Like the grain pattern on these. I think this was from Birch at the summer Molly's Wood meet up so not entirely sure where it was from but made in Essex 🤣

3 Plum wonders. The right hand one especially has a really interesting reddish tone, and has a nice mix of colours. Spalted butterknife and darker toned eating spoon. From a friend's garden in Scarning, Norfolk.

Apple teaspoon and spatula. This was the only fresh salvage from a derelict tree. Nice colours, tough as old boots! Always puts me in mind of banoffee pie for some reason haha. From a garden in Framlingham, Suffolk.

And, not a spoon, but the Stinking Iris berries were looking marvelous today. Equally as pretty as the flowers I think.

More spoons soon!

29/10/2026

Sorting out a huge pile of dead Oak pick up sticks that I got helping my friend on a job last week. Can't just saw and stack though, oh no . . .

A surprisingly good amount of haberdashery salvage and a bit of bark for dyeing, very handy for next week's workshop. So many nice patterns and dead bits. Had an interesting smell, similar to c***r that's been left out overnight after party 🤣
Have made allies with the garden Robin and he was assisting with bugs while I was working.
The light went all warm and wide just before sunset, shame I couldn't get any nearer but the Starlings on next door's roof were very melodious 🎶🎵🎶

Earlier this week I was dog sitting for my friend Karen and, well, the QA was pretty brutal. Tiring for them and me apparently 🤣 The spoons that did make the cut are excellent though, I shall show you tomorrow 😊

Karen has made me these lovely willow hoop frames for my rag wreath workshop in December, nice and sturdy, and will last a long time. Thanks Karen!

Whilst trying to get out of the door to get to Karen's a jar fell off the top of the cupboards and smashed one of the lakes in progress, that was for the workshop at the weekend. Glass and green/grey everywhere 😢 Sad to loose a good glass flask. The word smithereens was very appropriate!

Did go looking in a couple of charity shops today, no more flasks but did find this neat little pestle and mortar so I'd call that a win!

Over the next 10 days there are a few workshops coming up, a couple of spaces available on each -

Saturday 31st - Teaspoon Club, Starston (via my website)

Sunday 1st - Lake Pigments at Linton (via )

Wednesday 4th - Wooden Haberdashery in St Osyth ( via )

Saturday 7th - Tree Tannins Dyeing workshop at Bradfield Woods

Sunday 8th - Spoon Carving workshop at Bradfield Woods

(booking via )

25/10/2026

This Sunday, Spoon carving workshops in Elsing, Norfolk.

Elsing has it's own village woodland, Hanser Wood, which was planted by Norfolk WI for their 100 years centenary but which is now managed by The Woodland Trust and Andrew (left).

Andrew is a tour de force of a person, getting people involved any which way he can - learning practical skills, providing materials for local groups or using the wood as a community space. He runs a 'Woodlanders' group for the village teens, some of who came to the afternoon session.
Andrew has been a long time supporter and spoon collector of mine so it was really nice to be able to come and bring the mobile kit to him! 😁 Elsing is a tiny village but with a real connected feeling, and I think everyone got bitten by the whittling bug, so I may be back next year! ❤️🥄

We had a selection of woods - Sycamore, Blackthorn, Hawthorn, Rowan, Hazel and Norway Maple. I got to keep the left overs - yay!

You can visit Hanser Wood any time you like, details on the WT webpage.

Haven't had any Rowan bark for a while, looking forward to dyeing and lakeing with it later in the autumn!

20/10/2026

Panel all finished 😁

Just waiting for the Danish oil to dry before it goes in the garden proper.
Very pleased with how all the colours translated across - there is definitely a 'Bright' palette and an 'Autumn Ombre' one. Some of these seem to be brighter on wood than they are on paper which is interesting too - 3rd from the top is Hazel which is a sort of Suffolk Punch orange but a sort of bright brown when on water colour paper. To be fair, this might be the concentration of the paint. If I was the kind of person who had the patience to layer watercolours (and let the paper dry inbetween layers rather than brushing a hole in the paper 😬) then I might find out.

Also found an old kindling splitter blade in the workshop. Think this may have found a new life as a riving blade for attaching to a post. Not yet though. Other things to do first! Focus! 😆

Lots of little bits this week, projects projecting so nothing else too exciting to show you yet. I did move all the already cut billets and blanks nearer to the house so I have to look at them everyday and remind myself I need to get on with it (but realistically this is what November is for - No-new-wood-November haha).
And some Elm that was for logs has come back in the house because it looks 'useful'. Gods give me strength.

Some bug notes from the garden and surrounds - last minute Walnut leaf gathering for dyes and pigment workshop. They're all turning yellow when I wasn't looking!

Also 1st of the 2 squashes I have grown was ready to bring indoors.
That is a normal sized onion.
Think I will stick with foraging and gathering, ta! 🤣

17/10/2026

Coppice and Carve at Yoxwood in Suffolk today.
A whole meteorological menagerie of autumnal weather - rain, wind, squall, rainbow, glorious sunshine with dappled light through trees. What a day.

Yoxwood is community woodland, where trees planted 10-15 years ago are now needing to enter somekind of management - first on the list - things that can be coppiced!

Some has been started in previous years, and while I personally like a challenge, it's not nice to give Blackthorn to beginners 🤣 So we had a Hazel stool to play with instead. We took some poles down in the morning session, and some in the afternoon and had a range of ages from about 7-15. It was a bit like playing Tree Kerplunk! haha.

Both groups were complete beginners and did an excellent job of carving their first spoons. Instead of Field to Fork we got Wood to Whittle in about 10 minutes - doesn't get greener than that!!!

It was very helpful that 50% of the carvers today were called John, so I did quite well at remembering everyone's name (mostly!) 🤣

Thanks to Richard for asking me to come and play, and for making endless cups of tea all day. He also made these hazelnut and buckwheat cookies, which we of course served on one's best Hazel plate! 🌰

Everyone got a little bit bitten by the whittling bug . . . my work here is done!

11/10/2026

Shades of Yellow dye workshop today at Cambridge Art Makers

Some action shots and some results. Organized chaos as usual 🤣

We had our colours for wool and veg fibres from Tansy, Meadowsweet, Ash, Purging Buckthorn, Gorse, Heather and Weld. Tansy in the pot in photo 1.

We also had a little bit of Saffron for some silk (photo 3). Did you know Saffron is still the most expensive spice in the world, and has the same approximate value per gram as co***ne? For a moment I was unsure what to do with this lot - snort it or pay it into a pension? Luckily the wind blew and it fell in a saucepan so we could use it in the class before my moral compass slipped 🤣

Some of us even came colour co-ordinated for the class (very impressed!) and we tried to play match the dye stuff to the jumper😁

Everyone had free reign on the materials box - Esra chose all the same yarns (Pattons 3ply) so she could have a matching set for knitting, Elly went for a more handspun selection because she wants to weave with them, Steph and Marcia went for a little bit of everything (note the lovely eggy yellow wool fabric at the front of the photo ) and Melissa put a bit of everything in every pot and boom made herself the start of a sample notebook in one afternoon

This is the only dye workshop where I will show you a powerpoint presentation [short one!], and its lovely to talk about specific compounds that give the plants some of their defining characteristics.

Thanks so much ladies for a very enjoyable day 💛💛💛💛💛

08/10/2026

Very excited to be at Orchards, Apples and Rural Crafts Day
this Saturday, 10-5
Filby Village Hall, Main Road, Filby, Norfolk, NR29 3HN
hosted by Norfolk Wildlife Trust

More details here --> https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/events/2026-10-10-apples-orchards-and-rural-crafts-day

I will be hosting drop an all day drop in workshop where you can make your own Apple wood buttons and crochet hooks - £5pp

There will the usual spoon suspects, and lots of naturally dyed things.

I love Apple so much, it is one of my main woods for haberdashery things and you can get so much out of such small sticks, even the annual watershoot trim is useful.

Unusually, the dye compounds in the leaves and bark are the same so you can use all parts in the same way without having to split them up.
Apple is a warm toned, sunflower petal yellow, with a orange under tone. Any boy is it strong 💪💛

Most fruit trees have some kind of dye in them so I'll have a little display of orchard fruits - Medlar, Pear, Quince and Plum for you to see.

The wood for carving is from a mixture of places - the original 'Ode' photo is a Worcestershire Pearmain from the house I grew up in, but the house I am in now has a little Matsu tree. It is a late dropper, leaf and fruit wise; the apples that made the summer are pretty large for eaters. They also keep well in cold storage, well into the new year. I have a little bag of it's trimmings as well as the Egremont Russet and Lord Lambourne that are at my little cleaning job.
No discernible differences in the wood, but I just think it's nice to know who everyone is. Should I bring apples so you can do a taste and carve along?! 😮 🍏🍎

Anyway . . . Saturday! See you there 💛😁💛

06/10/2026

So, whilst still being in the same ball park as the painted riven hurdle but as far away and pressed up against the chain link fence, there is this, the super elegant end of tree pigments.

My first experimental paint palette with the tree colours.
I know nothing about making boxes (at the moment!) so grand ideas of lidded boxes very quickly got put in the bin as I wanted to take it to the NCFed AGM.
I had saved some very special Small Leaved Lime from the Shelley hedge . . . and that idea went in the wood burner as the wood was too soft and I couldn't get a clean cut down with a thin margins between.
The only wood I currently have that might be any good is some mostly dry Hawthorn, from last year's coppice coup at Bradfield. RIP my hands 🪦

Although, as an initial tester I think it went very well. I liked the deep gouging of the individual pans, the Hawthorn took it like a champ.

Did not get a couple of the mixtures quite right so they stayed glossy rather than completely dried out but overall, not bad at all.

This mixture is a re-hydratable one, only a wet paintbrush required.
Happily some paintbrush R&D had been occurring, the winning one was this pony tail hair and Apple wood one. Birch bark tar as the glue also seems to protect the wood when you put it in the water pot - nice.

Colours are not super obvious when they are dry, they are all rather dark, so best to paint yourself a little guide to remember.

I have been enjoying the hell out of myself playing with all of this over the last couple of weeks. Looking forward to working on refining it over the winter a bit more.

Paint and brush making with palette carving workshop anyone?! 🤣

05/10/2026

A most excellent weekend National Coppice Federation -NCFed AGM ❤️

I went on a workshop with Darren to learn about riving Hazel for fence panels.

Safe to say it took a while to get the knack of it, pretty much by the last pole to be split (take note of the broken pile under the bench 😮 ), but it did click eventually 🤣 Darren was very patient . . .

I was especially pleased because I wanted a fence panel to try out the bark paints on.
Thanks to everyone who joined in on Saturday making up colours - we got Walnut, Walnut Fe, Purging Buckthorn, Silver Birch, Blackthorn, Blackthorn Cu, Small Leaved Lime, Sweet Chestnut Fe, Woad (not a tree I know but I wanted some blue) and Sweet Chestnut ground up and painted on.
I will fill in the rest of the panel over this week and then it will sit in the garden until the next AGM to see how it weathers. Can't think of a more perfect way to display that experiment! Will of course show you when it is all filled in too.

Thanks to everyone for such a fun weekend, filled with friendship and camaraderie. It's so important to have people to cross pollinate with - for practical work things and ideas, book and paper suggestions, as well as social things. The weekend was so relaxed it was pretty much horizontal. It was a total winner to take the rocking chair and several cushions 🤣 And I very much appreciate the spoon, paint and yarn sales. It covered the diesel and the gin ❤️

28/09/2026

A few lake pigment testers for wood where it has been mixed with Gum Arabic and honey rather than with oil.

My don't they dry a lot faster! 💨
Colour is more saturated but it does raise the grain slightly because of the water in the Gum Arabic.
You can layer this colour though, and build up the intensity which you can't really do with the oil version.
There are some other gums I would like to try (and some more lake bases too), but the Gum Arabic has a good gloss when it dries that I think is also a good trait for wood. It can be a little tacky if it's too thick though.

I had less of the original blocks left this time around, and only did 8 colours because I was mixing up the paint for something else, but I now have a good idea of how lakes with Gum Arabic work.

The 2 wood blocks are Alder and Silver Birch, the little bits are Ash lath and the fishes are stripped white Willow (made for me by ).
I think that straight dyeing works best for Willow so far but this version of paint works way better than the oil, you just have to be confident in your brush strokes and not let the paint slide into a corner.

Colours are Holly and Small Leaved Lime in the first photo, then Purging Buckthorn and Blackthorn in the second, Ash and Oak in the third and lastly Silver Birch and Sweet Chestnut.

If you want to come and play with lake pigments and paint making then there is a workshop Cambridge Art Makers in Linton, on Sunday 1st November, 10am - 4.30pm, £80 pp 🎨 🌳 🧹

https://www.cambridgemakers.org/cambridge-art-makers/art-courses-overview/courses-with-cambridge-art-makers/cambridge-art-makers-short-courses-by-category/natural-dyeing/

Address

Bury St Edmunds

Telephone

+447854272535

Website

https://www.thewoodlandhaberdasher.co.uk/

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