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

Welcome...

wel·come/ˈwelkəm/

Noun:	An instance or manner of greeting someone: "we received a warm welcome".
Exclamation:	Used to greet someone in a glad or friendly way.
Verb:	Greet (someone arriving) in a glad, polite, or friendly way: "welcome guests in their own language".
Adjective:	(of a guest or new arrival) Gladly received.
Synonyms:	noun.  reception - greeting verb.  greet - receive - salute - hail - meet adjective.  acceptable - pleasant - pleasing - desirable

As usual, I'm late to the party in posting about momentous occasions. However, I just wanted to say for the record that it was an absolute pleasure to welcome these ladies into my home on Saturday and to see them all sat around my kitchen table felt so, so right. It was a very welcome day after such a January full of greyness.

These magenta anemones have been a very welcome addition to my kitchen as a precursor to spring too. Lit up from a stray ray of sunshine that fell on my table, it was the first time I have felt inclined to use my camera this year.

The colour purple...

First things first!  I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who wished my Dad a speedy recovery after my last post.  It's been a painfully slow ten or so days but (fingers crossed) he will have his surgery on Thursday.  I have finally sussed out routes to and from the hospital using both public transport and my own car.  It seems that the London transport system grinds to a halt (particularly going East) at weekends in preparation for 2012.  Never mind, I can ogle all the yummy places as I drive through Islington and then down City Road and Old Street.

Anyhoo, back to purple.

A couple of weeks ago, Kristina and I met up for our monthly visit to Kew Gardens.  I would say that the stars of May were the rhododendrons.  This mauve one was my favourite.  I just love the speckled throats of the flowers.

I had another wonderful day out with Kristina too.  This time we met up with Diana at Petersham Nurseries, which I know is one of these lovely ladies' favourite places and is fast becoming one of mine!  The disappointment was palpable when we discovered that the tea room was closed due to a fashion event.  Best hot-foot it over to Mrs Moon then!  THE most amazing yarn shop EVER!

The girls that run it are brilliantly knowledgeable about all things yarn-y and it really did have the best selection I have ever seen - all the yarns that I drool over online, there for the stroking!  I couldn't resist this scrumptious purple yarn.  It is incredibly soft.  I'm going to make this with it.

It seems that I was unable to resist the lure of purple that day and added some Louisa Harding and some Debbie Bliss cotton dk to my bag.

And keeping to the theme of today's post, my garden has produced this fabulously dramatic allium.  It is HUGE!  At least 12" across - like an explosion.  Love it!

Day tripper...

My excursion to meet Kristina last week had to be abandoned because of problems on the train so was hastily rearranged for today.  We went to Tikki Patchwork in Kew.  Any excuse to peruse fabric!  It is a wonderful little shop, well worth a visit if fabric and all things quilty float your boat.

There is nothing I like more than seeing a spectrum of colour in any shape or form, so there was lots to please me here.  I was looking for a couple of specific colours for some future projects...

...some thread for hand-quilting Harry and Max's quilts...

...and some essential bits and bobs that I'd run out of.

We had both coffee and lunch - we took the train one stop further to Richmond and had a delicious baguette in Paul.  Over lunch we discussed a joint venture that we have planned.  Colours were picked over and a game plan agreed.  It's a hooky project...  All will be revealed soon...  ish!

Building memories...

It's funny how the weeks turn in to months and I realise that I haven't really talked about much else on this blog than cake and quilts for ages. Way back in July I mentioned that I had done some training at Helen House to help support other bereaved parents. I haven't been allocated a family yet but I have helped facilitate a workshop for more newly bereaved parent with the theme of 'How grief changes over time.' In spite of being nervous about talking about my experiences to a room full of strangers, I found the whole day extremely fulfilling.

Yesterday I helped out at another workshop at the hospice, this time for parents who are using the hospice now for their children, called 'Building Memories.' My biggest fear this time was that I was a bereaved parent rather than a parent of a life-limited child and I was worried that this may seem insensitive. I hope it wasn't.

When Tom first became ill, it felt a bit like we had become public property. That sounds so ungrateful now, but I felt that I owed a lot of people something for the support we received. After the first three months in hospital, Tom was transferred to The Children's Trust in Surrey for rehabilitation on the unit for children with an acquired brain injury. He arrived there in October 1997 and that was when I started writing a diary for him. It had the most unoriginal title of The Secret Diary of Tom D******, aged 4 1/2. Pilfered straight from Adrian Mole! I wrote it in the first person, as though Tom were telling his story and each month I posted it out to all the people who had helped us get through the first few months. I designed a little logo heading and set myself boundaries of 2 sides of A4 paper in a generous pt.14 font.

Little did I know when I started it that I would continue writing it monthly for the next 8 years, sending out over 60 copies around the world. Some of the copies I sent were to people I didn't even know but had somehow got wind of it through other family and friends and showed a genuine interest. It never felt like a burden to write it and the actual writing process was surprisingly cathartic. As I became more experienced with the computer and technology allowed, I began to include photos and so nearly a lifetime was recorded in those pages.

I talked yesterday of Tom's diary and of my plans to maybe self-publish it so that it is more than 5 folders from WHSmith full of memories. I have been looking at Blurb and Lulu and it remains on My List of Things to do.

I also shared my other book with the parents who attended and I hope it will inspire them to do similar things for their children.


Then I got onto the subject of blogging! I suppose had I known about blogging, or had it been around back then, Tom's diary would have been online. How times change. I talked about the sense of community I had found as a result of being a blogger and that the world is there at your fingertips. When you have a disabled child, time is precious and isolation is a real issue and so being able to connect with people who have similar interests or experiences is sometimes difficult. In the early days of my life without Tom, the Internet became my friend: always there and something I didn't have to make an effort for, other than to switch my PC on.

It's all about sharing for me. I shared Tom's life with people through his diary and I am sharing my life and others through blogging. That is what does it for me. Sharing.

Yesterday, my day was rounded off perfectly by sharing a welcome latte with a friend I have made through my blog - Julia. Julia and I have been reading each others blogs for quite a while now and we finally met in person. A last-minute arrangement, hastily made by email on Friday evening! We talked of blogging and how I had covered it during the workshop, and also of all the pros and cons we have both experienced from our own blogs. We talked of sharing. I have a feeling we could have talked for hours.

It was so lovely to meet you Julia, and no, I didn't mind driving an extra 5 miles! I drove back to London with a smile on my face having had a Good Day.

I just noticed that this is my 200th post, and probably my first post without a single photo. Quite a milestone!

ps. have a look at the Christmas cards on the Helen House site, I thought they were really nice and bought all mine from there this year... Or why not have a look at these...

Prizes...

After ploughing through the boredom of holiday washing, I was thrilled to see this little package waiting for me on my recycling bin the morning after we returned from Lincolnshire.

I could hardly believe I'd won another giveaway from Pebbledash. This time from Diana's 100th post celebration.

I have to confess to ripping it open in my excitement, only to rewrap it to photograph it in it's woolly packaging!

And look what was inside: not just one beautifully wrapped package, but 5 beautifully wrapped packages...

Diana - I absolutely love it all. Thank you soooo much. I have found the perfect excuse to send 2 thank you cards already, although really, I could hardly bear to pop them in the letter box.

Nestled in amongst all that papery goodness, was one final tiny little parcel. A perfect little nugget of sea glass, painted with a tiny heart. I LOVE sea glass - how did you know Diana? Have I said thank you?

Looking back over my post listings, I am shocked to find that my 100th post and 1 year anniversary are looming...

Did you hear that? That was me gasping...and putting on my thinking hat...

Professional finishing...

Yesterday I had my first outing into Blogland. There were several species of butterflies in my tummy as I travelled into Islington to meet up at Loop.

I attended a workshop called Professional Finishing, kindly arranged by Alice. There I met, in the flesh, Ali, Val, Monica and Kristina, who has yet to get blogging (come on, Kristina!). I may be the fastest knitter in the West, according to Ali, but you can read about the day over at the fastest bloggers in the West, here and here.

What I wasn't expecting was being showered with gifts.

Alice gave me the most fitting mug for my morning coffee (beautifully packaged too...)

Val gave us all a set of her fab stitch markers

Ali had made us all a gorgeous linen pouch and one of her wonderful stamps

I was hugely embarrassed at having gone empty-handed, but no-one told me of any Blogland etiquette...so, thinking on my feet, I let them have a Moo card! Generous, huh?

My big purchase of the day was a pair of darning needles that came in their own little holder. The perfect reminder of how professional finishing can make your long-slogged-over knitting become something worth wearing. I think I may be inspired to make something to wear other than a hat now...