Rule one: cut away from your body
Almost every whittling injury comes from the same mistake: a cut aimed toward the carver, not away. Keep the blade's path clear of your other hand, your legs, and your torso at all times, if it slips, it should slip into open air. Sit down rather than stand when you can, brace the workpiece low and in front of you, and take short, controlled strokes instead of long ones you can't stop halfway through.
Wear a cut-resistant glove on the hand holding the wood and a thumb guard or tape on the thumb doing the pushing. See the gear guide for what's minimum per project.
The push cut
The workhorse cut for shaping and rounding: grip the knife handle in your dominant hand and brace the thumb of your other hand against the spine (the dull back edge) of the blade, then push the blade through the wood using that thumb, not your knife-hand's strength alone. Short strokes, blade moving away from your bracing hand and body. This is the cut behind most of the rounding and shaping in this library's beginner projects.
The paring (thumb-pull) cut
For finer control on detail work: brace your knife-hand thumb against the workpiece itself, then draw the blade toward that braced thumb in a short, pinched motion, the thumb acts as a hard stop so the blade can't travel past it into your other hand. Useful for cleaning up edges and small detail cuts where a full push cut is too coarse.
Grip mechanics like these are easier to pick up from a few seconds of video than a paragraph of text, most of the tutorials linked from the library demonstrate both cuts in the first minute or two.
Cutting with the grain
Wood fibers run along the length of a block, and cutting "downhill" along that direction peels off a clean shaving; cutting "uphill" against it tears and chips instead, and takes more force to push through, which is exactly the condition where a blade is most likely to slip. Take a light test cut in both directions before committing to a stroke; the one that peels cleanly is the direction to work in.
On a rounded profile (an animal's back, a figure's head) the grain direction reverses at the highest point of the curve. Cut toward that high point from both sides rather than trying to run one long stroke straight through it.
Keep it sharp
A sharp blade is a safer blade: it needs less force to cut, so there's less energy behind it if it slips. Strop on leather loaded with a polishing compound after every carving session, a few passes on each side is enough to maintain an edge that's already sharp. When stropping alone stops restoring the edge, move to sharpening stones, working through progressively finer grits, then strop again to finish.
Read the manufacturer's own guidance too
This page is written in our own words to complement the project list, not to replace what actually ships with your knife. Two official sources worth reading directly: Morakniv's instructions for use and safety information, and BeaverCraft's wood carving for beginners guide.