"What did you do during the pandemic, " friends will soon be asking. Now you can have a good answer: "I made a set of French eating spoons for our dining table." Boy, will they be impressed. First we'll learn to carve a French eating...
Elia Bizzarri
Clogs and Coracles
by Elia Bizzarri | Mar 23, 2021 | Craft Films | 7 Comments
For being in the middle of a pandemic, my life is pretty full. Tools and chairs have been selling better than ever in my career. I have made over 200 reamers in the last 12 months and am about to run out again - whew! The online classes are doing well and...
Velda’s Chair Class with Curtis Buchanan
by Elia Bizzarri | Feb 22, 2021 | Classes | 1 Comment
I first made one of Curtis Buchanan's Velda's Chairs about six or eight years ago when a neighbor came by my shop and ordered two bar stools and a settee in Velda's style. They wanted the chairs unpainted, so I drove three hours to find walnut...
Chairmaker’s Woodturning Class, plus Bowl Carving with Dave Fisher
by Elia Bizzarri | Feb 13, 2021 | Classes | 5 Comments
I remember the day I first heard of Dave Fisher. I was standing in front of my shop talking with one of my students about Instagram and he mentioned Dave Fisher. He seemed surprised that I'd never heard of him, so he pulled out his phone and started...
Joe’s Backyard
by Elia Bizzarri | Feb 8, 2021 | Chair Stories | 2 Comments
Last week I shipped a Continuous Arm Rocker to a customer in AZ. This is a story about his chair: Seth and I stood in the yard and stared. Sheds and and lean-tos filled to overflowing with machines surrounded us; rusty mammoths from a bygone age. Machines that didn’t...
Fan Birds with Jane Mickelborough/Chairmaking Videos
by Elia Bizzarri | Jan 31, 2021 | Classes, Craft Films | 0 Comments
I first met Jane Mickelborough when she spent three days with me and taught a class on spooncarving in my shop. They spent a day carving the spoon, a day chip carving and a day doing wax inlay. Her work is beautiful, with lovely lines and extraordinarily...
Old Spoon Videos
by Elia Bizzarri | Jan 13, 2021 | Craft Films | 3 Comments
I have a ball last weekend carving spoons with Peter Follanbee and am looking forward to this weekend's class. Peter has everything - the deep voice, the big personality, mad skills and a flowing beard. What more could you want? went back and watched a couple of...
Spoons with Follansbee & Reamer-Making Class
by Elia Bizzarri | Dec 31, 2020 | Classes, Craft Films | 1 Comment
I've been looking forward to doing this class for a few months - I first learned to carve a spoon properly in one of Peter's classes and he is such a laid-back, entertaining fellow that the idea of teaching with him sounds like great fun. We'll carve a...
Green Wood Source List: By You for You
by Elia Bizzarri | Dec 25, 2020 | Chairmaking Tools and Supplies, Classes, Craft Films, Kiln | 3 Comments
Where do you get green wood? I get this question regularly and it's a hard one to answer. Seth and I sell oak splits for chairs, but it's not exactly cheap if you need a bunch of parts. My blog has general suggestions for where to look, but wouldn't it be nice if...
Democratic Videos and Upcoming Online Classes
by Elia Bizzarri | Nov 30, 2020 | Classes, Craft Films | 0 Comments
Peter Follansbee and I are planning on a few spoon carving classes in the new year, plus I'm hoping to do a series on making a chairmaking reamer. In the mean time, Curtis and I are doing the last two classes of the Democratic Chair series on October 5th and 12th (we...
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