ANOTHER APRIL AUCTION IS HERE (AUCTION IS OVER)

Thank you ALL for dropping by!  This auction is over.  High bidders please consider paying by way of paypal, simply by clicking on the little yellow box in the left hand margin labeled "Make a Donation".  Please include $2.50 extra for shipping in your payment. I'll try to get your hook in the mail right away.  If you prefer to pay a different way, please send me an email and we'll figure it out.

Thanks again!!  Another auction will follow shortly.  Meantime please drop by again, I'm cogitating a post on how to make metal hooks (gotta try that sometime).

SOME EXOTIC WOOD BEAUTIES...

AND SOME AMAZING DOMESTICS

AND IF THAT ISN'T  ENOUGH, CHECK OUT THE OTHER SIDE...

AND THEN THERE'S THIS....

AND THE OTHER SIDE..

AND IN THE HAND...

Yup I've been a busy whittler lately.  Got the old hook making mojo back, I'm happy to say.  Lots of personal stuff's been happening and not all of it so good but making hooks is real therapy for me and here you have some of the results.

Shall we start at the top?  I'm referring to the four exotic beauties at the top of this post.  These are made from various rosewood related hardwoods, all having natural dark coloration and amazing grain beauty.  Lets call the hook at the far left Hook #1 and move to the right.

So Hook #1 is a 7mm beauty, a size that fits neatly between a K and an L.  Beautiful grain, smooooooooth and lightweight for an exotic hardwood.  Lengthwise it's 7 1/2 inches of very nicely figured Rosewood.

Hook #2 is made from one of the most beautiful but hard to work hardwoods in the world, Cocobolo.  Cocobolo is VERY hard and dense with natural oils that like to plug up the grains of sandpaper.  But for all the extra work the wood demands, it pays back in incredible color and grain.  Any hook made of Cocobolo is a real collector's item.  This one is an H (5mm) and is 7 1/2 inches long.

Hook #3 is another beautiful red colored hook, made from a piece of Bloodwood I found in my exotic wood stash.  Bloodwood is a really fine hook wood because of it's strength and durability.  Not one to sneeze at beauty wise either.  Chatoyance is there in abundance, making it a hook you can stare at and wonder at how Mother Nature does such beautiful things.  It's an H (5mm) and is 7 3/4 inches long.

Hook #4 is a cousin of hook #1 (made of the same wood) and was blessed with beautiful grain and color as well.  It's a smaller size (G 4mm) and a bit shorter at 7 1/4 inches long.

Now we move down to the domestics that just might knock your socks off.

Hook #5 (resting on my treasured "Your Cabin in the Woods" book) is honestly one of the most interesting, beautiful, challenging  hooks I've ever made.  It's made from a fallen branch that I found up on the Ranch a few yards from the Front Porch.  I believe it came from a Hazlenut bush.  The bark (and I wish now that I'd taken pictures of the raw wood cause you wouldn't have believed a hook could come from such a sorry looking piece) was pitted all over from the beaks of  yellow belly sapsuckers.  Sapsuckers are not my favorite bird because they can destroy whole young trees.  I'll show you a link so's you can see the bird and what they can do here .  In this case, the bird started what ended up as this amazingly beautifully naturally spalted  beauty.  Not that it didn't take major effort on my part to hold it all together during the making process.  There were times I thought it would just give up and crumble, but as you can see, it held together.  And it held well. It turned out to be one of the smoothest hooks for crochet I've made.   The hook was made  large to begin with because I was afraid the wood would give up on me.  I was wrong, it held nicely, but still I wanted to keep the grain figure at the hook head, which is, oh, incredible to say the least.  And the rest of the spalting in the hook?  Well that's why I took two pictures.  So.... you can see this is a truly one-of-a-kind hook.  It should rate a one of a kind size too, eh?   Ever hear of an "O" size?  I didn't for some time and figured it wasn't made because the letter "O" can easily be confused with the number "0" or some such hook sizing logic.  But there is such a thing as a size "O" (10.5mm) and that is what this hook size is.   7 7/8 inches of wood that thought it could (become a hook), and did.

Hook #6 is a hand carved Tamarack hook that was made from the fallen branch of a Tamarack (Western Larch) tree up on the ranch (and also just a few yards from the Front Porch)  In fact it was carved on the Porch by this old whittler feller (me) between staring sessions at the mountains across the meadow.  Heaven.  Whittling my favorite wood while sitting on the Front Porch up on the Crick on a quiet evening, listening to the Crick in the distance and watching the clouds bump over Hoodoo Mountain across the way.  Don't get much better than that.   I kept the cambium layer on the handle just because I love the color and the artwork that little beetles (not there anymore) carved.  The hook was made from a quartered piece that was split like firewood; so there's a bit of wedge shape on the finger side that I like to hold in the crease of my middle finger (see the bottom picture).  Comfy.  Lightweight.  Beautiful.  Made in the presence of the Crick.
It's roughly an M 9mm in size and is 7 inches long.

There we have it... another set of hooks and they're ready for bidding

Bidding rules:  We'll run the auction up until 10pm on Wednesday, April 29th.  Please email your bids to me at jimbocrochetwhittler@yahoo.com .

Tying bids will be resolved in favor of the first received.

I do take "Proxy" bids if you choose to do that as well but if we get a tie on highest proxy bid, resolution will again be in favor of the first bid received, but in this case I'll notify the later bidder of the situation.

I'm not always close by the computer, but I'll try to post your bids as soon as I can.

Please increase bids by $5 minimum.

Let the auction begin!

bids:

Hook #1
Barbara goes $45

Hook #2
Mona bids $25
Barbara with $45
Mona's back with $50
Barbara raises it to $60


Hook #3
Mona again with $25
Barbara here with $45

Hook #4
Mona once more: $25
Barbara does $50
Mona raises to $55
Barbara goes to $60

Hook #5
Carla bids $50
Barbara bumps it up to $60

Hook #6
Cathy goes $25
Nicola bids $30
Cathy ups it to $35
Nicola counters with $40
Cathy responds with $45