Wood Carving with Miramarwoods

By Michele Thymmons and Kristina of Miramar Woods
 
Have you ever wanted to create something magical, beautiful, and amazing out of wood?  If you have been on Instagram and have looked at crochet pieces, chances are you have seen the gorgeous, sleek, light as air, crochet hooks that Kristina has hand carved from pieces of wood she and her family find around their house and in everyday life.  In this 3rd Maker Feature, she shares with us some of her story and some of the resources that helped her in carving her fabulous crochet hooks and in growing her business.
 
Kristina: You can see more of her behind the scenes on her Instagram profile and find all of her crochet hooks and patterns on her website.

Hello! I’m Kristina from Miramar Woods. My craft is hand carving crochet hooks from reclaimed branches and I’m also starting to design my own crochet patterns. I was so happy when Michele reached out for this blog post because it’s my very first one! I’m a work-at-home-mom with 5 amazing, rambunctious children. I started my business this past December and have been overwhelmed with all of the love and support this amazing Maker Community gives to everyone who arrives. I have made the BEST of friends and can finally feel like my artistic urges are being met and welcomed. I cannot thank this community enough!

I started my hook carving business when I had a crazy idea that I should try something new. It wasn’t something I had trained in before and I had no reason to believe I’d be any good at it. But that little voice wouldn’t stop, and I’m so glad it didn’t. I wanted to share some of the resources I used to get started!

Hook Carving Resources:

1) https://youtu.be/cn3ebs2ONbY
This was the very first tutorial I saw when I wanted to get the general idea of how to carve a crochet hook

2) http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-finishes-works/
I used this page to get an idea of how the different wood finishes work

Building My Business:

As for building my business I wouldn’t be anywhere without these two Facebook groups:

3) Hooks and Needles: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=624361671242127&ref=content_filter

4) Maker Strong Facebook group: https://m.facebook.com/groups/651793408542435

Both of these groups give such amazing support and resources on how to connect with the online Maker Community (Hooks & Needles) and how to grow and maintain your Etsy, Ravelry, Instagram and Facebook Pages (Maker Strong). The creators of the Maker Strong group, Toni (IG: @tlyarncrafts), Melissa (IG: @woodsandwool) and Chantal (IG: @knitatude) each run impeccably curated blogs, IG Feeds and Live Streams that are full of amazing resources. These ladies know their biz and they are so generous with their time and knowledge 

But to rewind a bit. My biggest inspiration came from this woman: Lee Sartori of IG: @coco.crochet.lee. She is the Assistant Editor of Happily Hooked Magazine. I would watch her live on Facebook before I even knew this world existed. Her smile and spirit and encouragement for anyone who wanted in on this Maker world has been priceless. She posted an amazing blog post on how to use Instagram for audience engagement. I have used these tips every single day since I saw the post and they WORK!

5) https://emandcocolee.com/2018/03/28/10-things-instagram-has-taught-me-in-a-few-short-months/

My last resource is the Maker Community itself. Never before have I encountered a bigger group of people with the most generous hearts. My advice for anyone wanting to grow their business and grow their audience is to reach out to the makers around them. You can make the most amazing friends and there are so many people who are brimming with inspiration and advice and support.  

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Note - This post contains affiliate links, which means I will make a commission at no extra cost to you, should you click through and make a purchase.
 
Everyone creates, designs, and learns things differently.  With this in mind, I have tried to include a variety of articles/resources below and will continue to add more even after the article is published. There are a ton of youtube tutorials if you go there and type in any variety of key words to include: best woodcarving tutorials, best woodcarving tools, woodcarving 101, best woodcarving techniques, and many others.

Beginner Woodcarving is an awesome website that literally takes you step by step to start you on your journey for wood carving and whittling.  The type of wood, hand tools, and techniques are described to include which ones are the best for beginners. The author also has posted several youtube videos describing the step-by-step procedure to wood carve as well (he focuses on woodcarving a penguin :)). 
 
Fundamentals of Woodworking  is full of wood carving information and tutorials (to include the youtube videos of the same man woodcarving a penguin as the previous resource :)). This website is great not only for the beginner wood carver, but the intermediate and advanced as well.  The author of this site has several pages of even more resources for those just starting out or wanting to grow and try new woodcarving techniques.

Wood Whisperer has an article that is just what the title says Carving 101.  Here the author interviews and discusses the various types of carving and what tools should be used with each. 

Village Carpenter while this blog does not have new articles posted and the last ones were in 2013, this website is a good resource to read about hand tools as well as how those in the distant past carved and the tools they used.

The Art of Manliness is a humor filled and educational discussion on the basics of whittling/wood carving.  The types of wood, hand tools, techniques, and more resources for advanced carvers are all within this article where the author reminds the reader several times about the first rule of whittling - always keep your knife sharp. He also has several other links for other articles within to teach the reader about how to sharpen the carving knife and other edged tools, to ensure the reader has ample understanding of how to avoid his pitfalls as he learned.
 
Udemy even has a woodcarving 101 course entitled Wood Carving for Beginners by Sharon Elliott which has received rave reviews and a lot of students enrolled (695!).  Udemy’s blog found here delves into more details and describe more of what is needed to get started in wood carving. 

And that is a number of great resources to help you start your own woodcarving journey.  Can't wait to see what you all carve!!  If you are on Instagram, tag us @vamicreations or any of our other social media sites.  We would love to hear from you and see what you carve and your journey in woodcarving.  And if there are additional resources (or if any of the links above do not work) please let us know and we'll post them (with credit to you) or fix the broken link.  

Thank you for joining us for this third Maker Feature!  Check out Kristina’s Instagram at www.instagram.com/miramarwoods for more of her amazing handmade crochet hooks. You can find other maker features here about sculpting, pattern writing, blog creating, and wood carving.I’d also love to hear from you about what types of resources you want more information on as well as Makers you would like to nominate for a Maker Feature! Please email (vamicreations17@gmail.com) or leave a comment on this article!  Looking forward to hearing from you and have a great day!