Our Story

How it started

My name is Stephan, and HappyFields started with a single tool. My wife, Robin, bakes sourdough most weeks, and I kept watching her fight a stiff, high-hydration starter with an ordinary kitchen spoon. It bent. It didn't reach the corners of the jar. So one evening I made her a proper stirrer instead, shaped by hand, out of solid wood.

She used it every week after that, and friends who saw it started asking where she'd got it. That's really the whole origin story: I made one thing for one person, and it turned out other people wanted the same thing.

Still a one-person workshop

I still make everything myself, mostly evenings and weekends, in small batches. There's no factory and no team behind HappyFields, just me, a workbench, and whatever order came in that week. If one piece looks slightly different from the last, that's why: nothing here comes out of a mold.

Why wood, why by hand

I like tools that last and that you can actually feel good about using. Solid wood, finished with a food-safe oil, holds up to daily use in a way that feels honest. No coatings, no plastic, nothing to wonder about. Shaping each piece by hand takes longer than running a machine, but it's the only way I know how to make something I'd be happy to see on our own counter.

Made in batches, not stockpiled

I make a batch, sell it, then make the next one. That means things sometimes sell out and you'll need to wait a little for a restock. I'd rather have that than have a warehouse full of tools nobody asked for yet.

Thanks for reading this far, and for supporting a small workshop.

Stephan