Immerse yourself in the ancient craft of working with fresh, green wood. Expert authors Sjors van der Meer and Job Suijker introduce you to the traditional skills of green woodworking. Learn about the qualities of wood; how to cut and shape it; how to craft your own tools such as a shaving horse, wooden club, chopping block and saw horse, and then how to use them to make spoons, spatulas, stools and chairs. As well as teaching you new skills, this inspiring book will show you how working in natural surroundings, with natural materials, can create an overwhelming sense of well-being and enhance your awareness of the environment. This stunning, inspirational book has forewords written by Mike Abbott and Otto Koedijk.

Humans have always used their hands to create the world around them. But now most of us have gone from being practitioners to theorists, from being producers to consumers. What happens to our society when we are so divorced from the act of making? What happens to us as individuals when we limit the uses to which we put our hands? These are questions that preoccupy Siri Helle when she inherits a cabin of 25 square metres, without electricity, inlet water, or a loo, and decides to build an outhouse herself. Without any previous experience of building anything, she has to learn on the job and what she learns is not just about how to lay a floor and construct walls, but about what she is capable of and about craft and about the satisfactions to be found in making things by hand. Written with humour and insight, Handmade is the inspiring story of someone who tried to do it herself - and did.