#1 - All this talk about whittling set my mood, so today I'm gonna maek sumtin. Wasn't sure what exactly, a round stick just screams for a chess piece.
#2 - Debark the stick.
#3 - That knot will be a broblem.
#4 - That bend too. That will limit the size.

#5 - A ring where it can be sawed when it's ready. There will be the base.
#6 - Shaping the base, kinda round. It will be much more slim and slender, but I leave about this size for now so I won't break the thing down accidentally.
#7 - A couple of minutes after I decided this will be a horsie. A knight that is. I want one on the end of the try stick too. This will be the trial run.
#8 - At this point as I smeared some blood on the piece I realized I nicked the tip of my thumb. I had the choice to stop or continue with holding the stick awkwardly as I try not to bloody it more but this would hinder the process, and become a source of mistakes and maybe further wounds. No thanks.

Dunno when I will finish this, won't take long, one more session. However I found at least one designing flaws I made. But maybe it will be all right, just have to make the figurine smaller.

I was high time to continue this little knight. Well, did less then I planned but it's still progress.

It's getting look like a horse. But it got smaller and gonna gave problems with the details. The two most notable is the ears and eyes.
What really fucked me over is the center of the stick, it was just too soft and crumbly. It's not a coincidence that for real pieces they don't use sticks.

Also was in the woods today. Very nice weather, tho wasn't any exciting to photo. Maybe mushrooms, there were quite a few but many collector ranging around.

I had this hazel sapling I cut some time ago, it was 37 and over 50 mm in diameter at its thinnest and thickest ends, and was well over 2 meters long. I decided to use it for legs, cut up into three each is over 750 mms, which means it will be kinda low table, but I just want to use it as a flat-ish surface when it's needed, and a place I can put my tools when I do stuff in the garden. Maybe I can get some more hazel in the same size, but they need a year at least to dry.
Btw flat-ish surface, did some cleaning up on the Y log, sawed off the ends to make it clean, and roughly smoothed the surface. I thought I give it legs first then I'm gonna pane it a little.
I don't want the legs to be horizontal, but inclined a little. With the "I" part of the "Y" it's simple, but at the branches they have to be inclined in two directions.
I also plan to add cross "beams" between the legs to reinforce the whole structure.

Ok. Here's the last two. A storm and power outage prevented me to post.
So I made a flat place in an angle for drilling. I know I have to reprofile the chisel. It's sharp tho.
I haven't had a drill bit to drill wide enough holes so bought a 40 and a 35 mm flat drill bits. They were cheap but at least bad. Maybe the material isn't that bad, but they are kinda dull. Also they had a black coating to mask the fact that they are scratched all over. Couldn't fool me, I took a look. At first I judged the edge good enough (for government work) and got on with the drilling. Maybe with an electric drill it would have been enough, but I chose to do it with a hand cranked one. We call those Amerikáner, maybe I should look up the etymology for the other thread. Anyway it was pain to make even this shallow hole I have to sharpen the bits for sure. And I noticed the backside flat of the cutting edges are also scratched, so I have to make them nice and flat too.
Anyway this is what I have now. I'm gonna have problems with the thinner branch, the hole can't go too deep or I'll pierce the upper surface of the log.

Fixed another leg. Couple of weeks and it will be ready in no time.
It was easier to carve the hole than drill it. It has a tiny bit of a problem, it moves a bit along the longer axis. Which means I carved the inside of the hole wider a bit, even a couple of mms add much by the end of the leg. I have two plans to fix it, but first I wanna paint the whole thing with linseed oil. Which means I have to finish it beforehand.

IT STANDS! IT STANDS!
Finally, I carved the third hole out and fitted the leg. The one alone is a little longer than the other two, probably all the three will never be the same length but that's ok, I'm planning to use it in the garden where we don't have a square feet flat surface...
It's a little rickety for now, the two legs in the pair moves a bit, but not that much I could flatten the surface of the table with a chisel fine (now if I place a cube on it, it won't roll down). My plan to fix the little movement it has is to install "crossbeams", which will fix the legs in place relative to each other.
First I wanna debark the legs, then carve slots for the crossbeams on them, then make the crossbeams, then oil the whole thing, then put together, and finally drill holes in the legs at the crossbeams to fix it together with pegs.

Began with the supporting sticks which will give the structural rigidity to make that table steady. Just a hazel sapling bout thumb thick, cut into three pieces. The shortest will be somewhat higher where its length will be sufficient. The lowest bar will connect the thinnest leg with the lone one, that was I tried to find the height for.
The problem will be keeping the chisel in the right angle to carve the slot for the stick. Probably will have to drill through first and follow that hole. However I first I'll have to find the place to carve, so will re-string it so the cord will stretch at the center line of the legs.
I picked a 10 mm thick chisel, a 10 mm wide hole will be enough.
Another point of potential failure is the stick's crookedness. It will serve fine, but it's not that easy to make the flat ends parallel.

Whittling a backscratcher.
It's a piece of hazel about two finger thick on the thicker end, 59-60 cm long. The photos differ much, were taken at different times with different light conditions.

Essentially it is ready. I might make it thinner, and/or coat it with varnish (so the oils it gathers from the skin, the dust that settles on the surface won't build up and make it dirty, so it can be cleaned and kept clean easier).
pic #6 is the butt end where I hold the scratcher.
The "rake" isn't sharp since I don't plan to flay my back.