Pasta BOARD

Pattern your pasta with this chip-carving exercise

- Sarah Marriage

Order of Work

• Transfer pattern

• Chip carve

• Bandsaw board to final size

One thing that I've noticed about craftspeople is that we appreciate craft in all its myriad forms. Whether we're admiring hand-crafted furniture, intricate glasswork, or handwoven textiles, we can see the common threads of skill, care, and time that connect our experience of making things with our hands. This is one of the reasons I enjoy making a project like this that connects carefully carved woodworking to another time-honored craft: pasta-making.

When I heard that Fred and Linda Williams were writing "Get Started with Chip Carving" for this issue p. 24, I knew that this pasta board would be a fun project for new and seasoned chip carvers alike. The board features seven different carving patterns that will employ a variety of basic chip-carving shapes starting with the classic isosceles triangle and including squares, scallops, and long, straight lines.

The project is essentially a carving practice board that converts into a beautiful, useful tool for the kitchen. And if you're not interested in making pasta yourself, it makes a beautiful gift for the crafty cooks in your life.

A practice board with a purpose