The mounds of wood shavings are building up beneath the shaving horse as I pull the blade rhythmically downwards, taking off generous slices of soft, golden timber.
Just a few moments ago, the piece I'm working on looked like the quarter hulk of a trunk, split with some trepidation using an L-shaped implement called a "froe", which sounds, and looks like the invention of an Anglo Saxon woodsman.
Now, though, my chunk of curved sweet chestnut is beginning to lose its triangular edges and become more table leg-like.
It is therapeutic work out in the sunshine at Growers Organics, a nursery raising organic plants at Kitley in the South Hams of Devon.
Around me, other tables are taking shape, as our small group gets busy with a variety of tools, mostly ancient but a few modern, notably the fearsome battery-powered electric jig saw used to cut out the tops of our tables or stools from slabs of tree. I haven't picked up a chisel since secondary school CDT lessons, but, the only woman on the course, I'm enjoying myself immensely.
Tutor Peter Lanyon trained in fine furniture making, and in his workshop on Dartmoor he combines the finesse of these methods with the more rustic charm of green wood furniture making, using wood coppiced in Devon woodlands.
His work shows off the patterns in the grain and makes a feature of the wood's curves. "It is about working with an element of surprise, because you never know what's going to happen when you split a piece of wood," he says.
Over our two-day introduction to green woodworking, he is helping us do the same thing, as we make either a stool or a table.
Our first step is to choose our wood from a stack of ash and sweet chestnut, harvested from coppice stands in woods at Dartington and Bovey Tracey respectively.
The ash wood is straighter, but I plump for making my table from sweet chestnut, because I love its golden colour. It is quite wiggly, so all the legs will have a kink in them – very definitely a feature rather than a defect in a piece of greenwood furniture.
There's quite a big box of plasters in Peter's first aid kit, and his assistant Dan Best is quite used to patching up the odd cut – I have to call on him after idly running a finger over the blade of a tool called the spokeshave, and drawing blood. Generally speaking, though, Peter says there's not too much damage you can do with these old fashioned tools.
An axe, now, is a different matter. Some of the blokes are using them to take off quite a bit of wood quickly from their table legs, and achieve the rough shape of their table legs, before honing them more precisely with the draw knife.
Because I'm a bit accident prone, I decide to stick with the draw knife. Seeing me chipping away, Peter gives me a hand, removing quite a bit of wood quickly to give me an initial shape to work with.
The next stage is to get a smooth curve to the shape of the legs, which is then honed with the spokeshave, a tool which is to the draw knife what fine sandpaper is to the rough stuff.
All the green woodworking tools have brilliant names. Take the travisher, which we use to take off the rough outside surface of the oval tabletop, revealing the beauty of the grain underneath.
We also have the option of doing this with a plane, which gives a completely flat smooth surface. The travisher follows the contours of the wood, giving a pleasing effect. "It really depends on the effect you want to achieve," says Peter.
The hardest part is making the joints between the tabletop and diagonally placed legs.
We use something called a "tenon cutter" to fashion peg-like ends to the legs, which are then pushed through holes we have cut in the tabletop, again with some nail-biting power tool work.
No glue is used in this kind of furniture making. Instead, wedges of wood are hammered into groves in the top of the legs to hold them in place. I've chosen dark red cherry wood wedges, which complements the sweet chestnut wood.
A chisel is then used to slice the top off to make a smooth surface which is flush with the table. This proves really tricky, because you need to angle the chisel just right. Dan is on hand, though, to tidy up my raggedy efforts.
There's a trick, too, to adjusting the length of the legs so the table doesn't wobble, which Peter helps me with. "As long as you can balance a glass of wine on top of it is level enough," he says.
It is a race against the clock to finish my table, down to the last stage of rubbing the wood with some oil to stop the wood drying out and cracking, something, Peter says, which needs repeating "once a day for a week, once a week for once a month for a year". It really brings out the lustre of the wood.
I'm really pleased with my table, which back home I've been lavishing with walnut oil I've found at the back of the kitchen cupboard.
If I had another go, I'd try to make a more evenly shaped tabletop. But then, perhaps that's part of the charm, along with the wiggly legs. It reminds me of a living tree.
Visit www.peterlanyonfurniture.co.uk for details of Peter Lanyon's furniture making courses, held at various Devon venues throughout the year.
