Large Birch Kuksa

The traditional Kuksa is a style of drinking cup made by the Sami people of northern Scandinavia and is carved from Birch. 

This Kuksa is large and can hold just over a pint of liquid, I know people that use these when camping for food or drink. The two holed handle is very comfortable to hold.

Kuksa with spoon knife

Kuksa with blades used

The Bowl is 135mm x 125mm, overall length is 240mm, height is 65mm

Birch Qiaich

Birch Qiaich

I have a lot of local woodland albeit carved in to seperate sections or "reserves". In the woodland we have a lot of beautiful silver birch, I love the way that they glow in sunshine with darker trees supplying a contrasting backdrop. The wood is soft and easy to carve but a bit prone to tearing if knives are not sharp.

My local reserve are clearing their woodland of birch which means there is wood available.

The quaich is a tradtional Scottish drinking cup and was used for drinking whisky or brandy.

This little cup was a pleasure to carve and I will be making more.

Kuksa from Cherry wood.

I have been looking at kuksa's, Swedish traditional drinking cups, many of these hand made kuksa's are very beautiful, inspired I carved my first Kuksa from Cherry wood.The Kusa is quite small the bowl being only four inches on the long side, the whole Kuksa is seven inches long.

The wood was a joy to carve with the colours suited to the Kuksa, the lines of the Kuksa were easily found in the wood. Here is the Kusa before being oiled.

The wood was first reduced and rough shaped by hand axe, then I worked with two wonderful carving tools from Dorset Woodland Blades, the blades are easy to sharpen to very, very sharp allowing me to concentrate on the carving.