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