The international celebration of the carved wooden spoon
SPOONFEST 2026: 30TH JULY – 2ND AUGUST – SAVE THE DATE!
Tickets on sale 1st March 2026 – 11am
SPOONFEST is the annual international gathering of wooden spoon carving enthusiasts.
Since it started in 2011 SPOONFEST has inspired many skill sharing gatherings around the world which makes us very happy. If you want to find out what is so inspirational you’ll have to come and join us in a field in Edale the first weekend in August.
Whether you are a serious professional carver, someone just starting out on the spoon carving journey or just someone who wonders what all the fuss is about you’ll find something here for you. There are more carved wooden spoons than you’ll ever see anywhere, many of them for sale. There’s a host of sharp tools to see, feel and try. There are dozens of species of green wood to experience carving. There’s great food, there are campfires, there are people chatting endlessly about what makes the perfect spoon. There are experts teaching classes, there’s informal sharing of skills, there are demonstrations of specialist techniques. There’s a wood fired pizza oven, there’s the most beautiful campsite and there are hot showers. There’s a community of lovely, slightly oddball, like minded people. There’s a charity bar, and there’s an awful lot of laughter.
SPOONFEST is in two parts, the main festival runs from Thursday 6pm to Sunday 4pm. A smaller number of people join us for “prefest” staying on the same site but with intensive three day courses taught by some of the worlds top instructors this runs from 2pm Tuesday to 5pm Thursday.
You’ll not find much shared about spoonfest online, it’s very much an analog festival. In a world where people experience so many things through screens this is a few days of experiencing things first hand, feeling, seeing, smelling, touching, sharing, laughing. We hope you’ll come and join us.
Tickets go on sale 1st March and often sell out quite quickly so if you want to come do save the date.
Sign up to our mailing list below for updates.
Spoonfest has everything that any spoon carver could ever desire: masses of green wood, lots of sharp tools to try out for free, the best carvers in the world doing free demonstrations and paid workshops, campfires, the spoon gallery full of inspiration, Spoonshop for spoons, tools and T shirts, camping on site, local beer sold for charity, a wood fired pizza oven, all this with a wonderful festival atmosphere in the heart of the Peak District countryside.
Respect is a fundamental value at Spoonfest, we want Spoonfest to be a safe space where individuals from diverse cultures, backgrounds and marginalised groups, can come together all for the love of spoons.
In maintaining a positive atmosphere of mutual respect, we reserve the right to deny access to anyone whose presence may jeopardize the enjoyment of others.
Given the rise in racist and fascist beliefs and the prevalence of online propaganda pushing these ideologies, Spoonfest wants to make it clear that racists and Fascists are not welcome at our event.
Spoonfest line-up
Workshops are 2 hours long and cost £20 each paid direct to the tutor and can not be booked in advance. Bookings for each day open at 9 in the morning which means if you desperately want to do a particular workshop you need to get in the queue early.
On the Friday there will be lots of beginners classes focussing on the techniques of using axes and knives and discussions about timber. On Saturday and Sunday there will be more intermediate and advanced classes. Some workshops will be repeated Saturday and Sunday so if you miss out Saturday you may get a second chance to book early Sunday.
The Spoonfest line-up is getting too numerous to list but here’s an intro to many of the spoon carvers you might find sharing their skills with you at Spoonfest! More updates to follow!
Adam Ashworth
Adam is a full time blacksmith and maker of green woodworking tools. He will be running classes in knife etching, where a knife blank is included in the course price.
Alan Mitchell
Alan is also known as Alien Spoons. Alan generally always uses small round wood for his spoons which reduces waste and the time required to axe out a blank. Alan will be teaching beginners workshops, how to make a mushroom shaped scoop that is an ornament and a scoop, and controlled knife cuts to make wooden flowers.
Alex Finberg
Alex is a spoon carver based in South Devon, he teaches a range of abilities and ages and is passionate about providing access to spoon carving for improving mental health and wellbeing.
Alex will be teaching workshops on Log to spoon – a step by step, production carving, a simple Cooking Spoon, and a range of beginner classes. He will also be holding a talk and Q&A on Spoon Carving for Wellbeing.
Amy Leake
I’ve been hooked on green woodworking since 2011 when I first became enthralled by the possibilities of working with raw wood to create humble functional objects. I’ve gained a huge amount from attending every Spoonfest since it’s inception, and am excited to be able to share my knowledge with others.
Amy will be teaching beginners classes, and ‘symmetrical spoons’.
Beth Moen
Beth Moen has been a woodworker since 1981 and a teacher at the legendary Sätergläntan institute of craft for many years. She has worked with many different techniques within slöjd and woodwork but she always comes back to spooncarving; the foundation of and joy in her practice comes from its challenging simplicity.
Dave Cockcroft (aka @davethebodger) is a chair maker, spoon carver and teacher. He also makes small sloyd finishing knives from Hewn and Hone blanks.
DeborahSchneebeli Morrell
Having originally trained in fine art Deborah became addicted to spoon carving ( she’s a spoon a day type!) after a long career as an artist/teacher and a writer of craft books.
She is known for investigating and carving a large variety of different wood species and has even realised that a lovely piece of wood can do more than anything to cheer you up! She has a lifelong interest in the value and meaning of making and its therapeutic and transformational aspects.
Her practice stresses the importance of drawing (without a template) as a way of developing imagination and enhancing perception. She will also emphasize learning to use tools confidently (safely) to make a better spoon!
Harald Lamon
Harald returns this year to teach an assortment of different classes.
Harry Samuel
Harry (@sparry_hoons) has been a green woodworker and land worker for over a decade. He completed an apprenticeship with Barn the Spoon and at the Cherry Wood Project. He was a founding member of the Greenwood Guild in London and taught woodland crafts at Ruskin Mill College. Harry has a passion for passing on rural skills to people of all ages and abilities.
Karel Hekrle
“I am happy to join Spoonfest this year to bring a little piece of knowledge to share again and teach several workshops. Having experienced long years of using the axe daily I want to promote it’s both sides – raw effectivity and delicate precision when skillfuly handled. Uncover the beauty of the underbark textures that i often welcome as a part of the design. And give some ideas on carving long handled spoons and scoops.
I like the contact with nature, it inspires me in its changes and I want to cherish the real impression from “living” wood in its pure beauty.”
Jan Harm Ter Brugge
Jan Harm is a spooncarver and product designer/teacher from the Netherlands. He picked up spoon carving as a design activity in 2004, looking for a simple and direct approach to design humble products that matter for people, both in a visual- and ergonomical aspect. Being a student in one of Wille Sundqvist’s last workshops in Sweden influenced his style and view about spoons and teaching.
As a traditional folk artist, teacher, and amatuer folklorist, Liesl is on a mission to rekindle the accessible and enjoyable traditional decorative folk art of kolrosing (think of kolrosing as tattooing wood). She is an accomplished spoon carver, and her kolrosed spoons have been exhibited at museums including a one-woman show of 35 illustrated story spoons at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis.
Kolrosing is an endangered craft—it is officially “red-listed” in Norway. As part of her mission, Liesl has travelled to Sweden and Norway to both teach kolrosing and to explore its lore dating back to medieval and Viking times.
A passionate teacher, she has won numerous awards over the course of her 35-year career in education. In her teaching of craft, Liesl works with students to carve spoons and kolrose wood with confidence and joy through mindfulness, technique, and practice. She was the 2023 Folk Artist-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an American Scandinavian Foundation Fellow. She teaches at the American Swedish Institute, John C. Campbell Folk School, North House Folk School, and the Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum. In Scandinavia, she is an invited teacher at Sätergläntan in Sweden and at Rauland Akademiet and the Gudbrandals Museum in Norway. In the fall of 2026, Liesl and Jögge Sundqvist will undertake a road trip down the spine of Norway to chase the disappearing lore of Norwegian kolrosing.
Martin Hazell began carving spoons almost by accident about 25 years ago and he’s not planning to stop anytime soon. He specialises in carving scoops and working with unusual woods, particularly burr. Martin will be teaching how to carve a “Traditional Curvaceous Flour Scoop” in Hazel, and how to carve a traditional devon cream spoon in sycamore.
He will also be doing a demo on ‘scoop design – how to design and make an attractive and useful scoop”
“Being fascinated about blades and exotic cultures, I originally got into Spooncarving because I wanted to use the tools I had collected by my early 20s.
Traveling to all corners of the world to study martial arts, forge and do backcountry guiding, I started to pick up overlapping principles, both mental and physical. I made it my mission statement to integrate them, to form a save, bold, learning oriented system that allows anybody to let their creativity flow without limits.
On the practical side of things I got to make and design some of the more popular tools on the market based on my goal to teach every student to get to know their tools intimately and use them to their full potential.
I teach Spooncarving like I teach grappling, canoeing or archery. Systematic, principle based, bold, physical and with a steep, continuing learning curve.
I’m stoked to be able to share over a dozen years of worldwide Spooncarving with you!”
“Carving has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, filling that urge to create something. I get my inspiration from my surroundings, putting chickens, snails, frogs on my work as little reminders of nature’s beauty. I live on a small farm in the center of Israel where I teach spoon carving classes and trying to spread this rewarding craft.”
Owen is a full time woodworker and teacher living in Herefordshire. Originally from Surrey, he has been working with wood for over 10 years. It has taken many years of practice to master the skills required to be one of the few pole lathe bowl turners that produce high quality items in the country. Having discovered the world of green woodworking,he immersed himself in the possibilities that these traditional techniques can offer. Using axes, knives and a foot powered lathe, he creates items that have their own unique, warm character.
Paul has worked with trees since 1996 and been greenwood working since carving his first spoon in 2004. Public demonstrations of crafts and teaching soon followed and he spends his time carving woodenware, working in countryside conservation and foraging for the next tasty piece of wood or wild food.
Peter Kovacs
Yoav Elkayam “I have been introduced to spoon carving and greenwood working almost 10 years ago while visiting friends in the UK, and got inspired to take it to the next step and my full day occupation after attending Spoonfest 2014 . Having been working as a full time maker and instructor for the past 9 years, between craftsmen I met along the way in order to improve my skills and eye for details & live closer to the trees and nature.
Workshops are 2 hours long and cost £20 unless stated, each paid direct to the tutor and can not be booked in advance. They have to be booked when SPOONSHOP opens in the morning which means if you desperately want to do a particular workshop you need to get in the queue early.
On the Friday there will be lots of beginners classes focussing on the techniques of using axes and knives and discussions about timber. On Saturday and Sunday there will be more intermediate and advanced classes. Some workshops will be repeated Saturday and Sunday so if you miss out Saturday you may get a second chance to book early Sunday.
