Weaving with willow...

If you follow me on Twitter, you will have the heads up on the most fabulous of days I had on Tuesday when I found myself in deepest, darkest Cambridgeshire learning the art of weaving willow.

When Celia tweeted about a skills swap she had done with Debbie of Salix Arts, I found myself, along with Mrs Dottycookie and Mrs Silverpebble, getting enthusiastic about it to the point where a workshop was arranged especially for us.

We were blessed with a crisp sunny day and soon were completely immersed in the task to hand. There was barely a whisper, which is very unusual for when bloggers meet!

Debbie is a fantastic teacher and we were quickly on the way to creating with this wonderful natural material. I knew I wanted to make a plant support for the garden so having been given a quick tutorial, things began to take shape.

I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo above, but there are a couple of different weaves happening there - the middle section being a fence weave. I loved working with the continuous amount of willow that you just added to as and when necessary to create a flowing design.

I think it is possible that my favourite part of my structure is this knot that secured all the ends together. Isn't it beautiful?

I love the natural ends of the willow so much, I couldn't bear to chop them off.

So here is my ta-dah! I'm not entirely sure I will want to cover it with foliage next year and so I'm thinking I might just have it as a focal point somewhere in the garden.


Oh! And there was cake!

Thank you so much, ladies, for yet another superb crafty, bloggy day xx

Craft and cake…

…is a regular feature at my house on a Tuesday evening. I just realised that I have never blogged about it!  Probably because the ladies who come don’t blog and don’t know that I blog either.  For ages I had been asked to set up a craft club and so I made it my resolution for the new year and five months later, it is still going strong.  Personally, I think it is the cake that keeps them coming!  My promise to my ladies was that for their commitment, I would bake every week.

Yesterday, we had an extra-curricular workshop, hence the early morning baking.  Following the on from the fun I had at Kristina’s with Ms Silverpebble herself, I knew my ladies would love it too.

The concentration around the table was a living thing! And four hours later, there were five very happy bunnies all proudly wearing their own creations.

 

 

This was the table as I lured them away from it with the cake I had made.  A fabulously creative mess!  And here they all are, scoffing the cake to get back to the task in hand! I have never known such a short cake break

 

 

Emma has such a wonderful selection of goodies to choose from, the hardest part is picking out what to incorporate into your design.  I just couldn’t resist this beautiful button.

 

 

I also spotted two of Emma’s tiny, tiny silver clay flowers which I snaffled to add in too.

 

 

I spent most of the afternoon crafting a choker with it, offset from the centre, and I love it!  I know I will be wearing it throughout the summer.

 

 

Emma – thank you so much for such a fun afternoon!