There's a certain magic to ancient crafts that still exists in a modern world. While our environment struggles with excess, waste and pollution, artist Sophie Sellu of Grain & Knot, offers a reprieve by breathing new life into abandoned items.
The London-based designer spends her days carving cooking utensils from reclaimed wood in her garden-shed studio. "A lot of the timber I use comes from my Uncle Tony, who is a builder working on the renovation of period properties in London," she says. "This timber would normally be thrown away, but instead he loads it into his van for me to use." 
Grain & Knot's unique pieces are not only beautiful, they are also rich in history. A spoon with which you eat your porridge may once have done its part in holding up a school gym, a Victorian townhouse or an old church.
"The timber can be hundreds of years old," says Sellu, adding that this has its challenges, as it often contains nails, is coated in paint, or warped and cracked. "I work around this, stripping it of all varnishes before I start and making it safe to use."These imperfections mean Sellu can't always find the same timber twice, but this is in part what makes the items so special. As her following has grown, she has started to receive timber from customers in exchange for items. "This can be really rewarding as I receive wood from a renovation or a felled tree, and I get to give back an object," she says.
Woodcarving has always intrigued Sellu, who has been playing around with the craft since she was 12 years old. "We had a large wood workshop at school and very few girls were interested in doing it," says the designer, who took advantage of the free rein given by their two "wonderful" teachers. "I have always been an avid crafter, and the need to make only grew as I got older."
Sellu worked as both visual merchandiser and trend forecaster before deciding to start her own woodcarving studio. She has swapped a busy office for a day of solitude, and a computer for age-old tools. But it is, in fact, her large online following that has helped her build her company.Sellu, a veritable Instapreneur, advertises her work only on Instagram, where it sells out every week and is bought up by customers all over the world, including several of the UK's top chefs.
Her greatest challenge is time, as each of her unique pieces requires hours of painstaking work. Sellu's studio, which she describes as "simple", contains a bandsaw and a planer thicknesser, but she mostly uses her two favourite wood-carving knives: the Swedish classics Mora 106 and 162.
"I've recently started looking more into texture and surface decoration," Sellu says. "I like to create beautiful items, but my main priority is that they are functional."
Looking at her beautiful objects, you cannot help but wonder about their previous life. Whether the material came from a tree on which children swung in the 1800s, or the ceilings of an old apartment, one thing is for sure: ancient craft and modern technology have come together to provide passage into the future for the grains and knots of this historical timber...