Silver spoon
It’s been 2 years since I did a spoon making course at Touchmark Studios. Since then I’ve worked on a couple of projects making silver spoons for different uses and its been interesting to try my hand at something other than jewellery making.
On the course which we did with Silversmith Matt Benton, we learnt how to use the hydraulic press Chris has in her studio and we made an ice cream spoon based on the ones used to eat ice cream from a small tub.
We also made a spoon of our choice, mine being a salt spoon for a small porcelain pot I use for salt. Unfortunatly I learned that salt makes the silver spoon go black quite quickly, so it now gets used for mustard, although to be correct a mustard spoon is a more elongated shape.
Then my Great Niece was born so I decided I would make her a Christening spoon. I wanted to make something contemporary and after lots of research came up with this idea.
First I made a copper version so that I could determine the work flow. Then I made the spoon in sterling silver and had it Hallmarked, but the final touch would be to get it engraved with her name and birthdate.
The internet is wonderful when you are searching for a service like this and after a lot of research I managed to find James Todd who lives local to me in North Somerset. James is a specialist in Seal engraving. That is a seal on a ring that is used with hot wax to authenticate a document or seal a letter, but he also engraves names, dates etc. I was really pleased with his work when I picked the spoon up this morning. It's classy but still contemporary and must have been difficult to do on the textured surface.
Link to James’s website http://www.jtengraving.com
So I’ve tried my best to photograph these spoons and the engraved detail but thats a whole new learning curve. Suffice to say I am pleased with the result but my photos don’t do it justice, I just hope Violet and her parents like it !