Another wreath

I was a bit taken aback by how popular the last wreath was, so here’s another.  This is made in the same way.  The background is a sample of furnishing linen which I have had for ages but not wanted to cut up.  The circle is done in chain stitch with three strands of embroidery cotton.  This one has appliquéd berries and thorn stitch between the leaves.

This one is quite so easy to read.  The previous one had a lighter background:

I like the second one because it looks a bit vintage, as if the person who made it in the 19C didn’t quite know how it was going to fade and become less distinct.

These are so easy to do, though.  Brilliant for beginners because the appliqué leaves are a really simple shape.

Soft launch at Pomegranate

Saturday was a big day for me.  I invited four friends to come and try out my studio as a space for workshops.  I was really anxious in case it didn’t work.  It is snug, and people have to cooperate about moving around, but it was doable.

I was trialling a workshop on Maying, or bringing in the May which is a tradition we have rather lost in the British Isles.  There are some good books on the Maying traditions including the truly wonderful Arcadia Britainnica, which has great pictures of people dressing up for the May:

It has some really inspirational photographs of people dressed up for the various festivals, and I particularly like the shaggy costumes of many of the Jack in the Green characters

It all looks very pagan, but according to the Medieval Historian it isn’t.  It might be Medieval, but is most likely Victorian.  As usual, he loves to drain the romance out of just about anything.

Maying is really about celebrating the return of vegetation and greenery to the earth and so the festivities included bringing greenery into the home as a decoration and celebration.  My original idea was to make paper chandeliers along the lines of Polish Pajaki:

I wanted to do this to try and connect with diverse Bristol which has a large Polish community.  The only problem is that it is incredibly dull to do and takes forever.  The Polish tradition was to make them in the long dark winter evenings and I can see how this would while them away.  Plus, I had no end of trouble getting the strings to suspend the hoop evenly.  So I think that I might change the workshop to making wreaths.  My lovely, lovely guinea pigs, however, were up to the challenge of making chandeliers:

We had a great day and everything looks wonderful in the brilliant spring sunshine:

Plus we had a wonderful shared lunch.

Concentration levels were high:

And they gave me some wonderful feedback.  Of course, not everyone took it totally seriously:

I am greatly encouraged by this and am encouraged to set up my first real expecting people to pay for it workshop.  Watch this space.

More good works at Pomegranate Studio

We had two days of glorious sunshine at the weekend which I took advantage of to repaint the summerhouse at the bottom of the (very short) garden at Pomegranate Studio.  I was using Annie Sloan chalk paint which I am assured sticks to everything without need of sanding and priming.  It shows the sort of place this is that when I ran out of painter’s tape to mask the glass I used what I had: several rolls of washi tape mainly from Tiger and Paperchase.  The problem is that now I rather like the gingerbread cottage look it gives.  Certainly the fresh green and the airforce blue (‘Aubusson’) seem to work well together.

The paint is fantastic, though.  It dried quickly and I think I might get away with one coat, at least for now.

The summerhouse is in a bad way needing a new roof covering, plus a good scrub out, but the structure is pretty sound.  The lovely Adirondack chairs I bought myself as a present were in good shape too.  I will post pictures as the makeover continues.

This is my Westie, Hedy, who was on hand to help throughout.  But the end of the afternoon she was covered in blue paint although I thought I kept a close eye on her.  Miraculously it washed off when she had a bath.  Another plus for the chalk paint.

Brave New World

You may have noticed that there have not been too many posts on my blog recently.  This is because I have taken the big decision to start offering workshops.  When I have given talks in the past, people have asked if I would do a workshop and I have always said no, but this year I took a deep breath and decided that I would like to offer classes in a variety of things that interest me.  To this end, I have been dreaming up workshops that I would like to go on myself and making demonstration samples.  Plus, I have roped in the Medieval Historian to add some historical information relevant to the workshop.  So, Christmas decoration making will have a session with tea and cake where he will talk about the origins of Christmas customs in this country.  My Easter workshop (which may well launch in 2018 – it takes much longer than you think to get these things ready) will include an informal session on the romantically doomed Romanovs who commissioned the Fabergé eggs we will be thinking about.  He will not be caught up in the Romance, though; he’s a proper historian after all.

My vision is to create a series of workshops based on customs and celebrations that we used to have in this country but have lost.  For example: the just-post-Christmas Wren Hunt, the cakes and candles of Candlemas in dreary February, and others to follow.  All will have projects and historical information to drop into any conversation.  Social success is assured.

The biggest step of all has been to have a studio built in my garden where I will offer small courses of no more than six participants.  It’s called Pomegranate Studio as the pomegranate symbolises creativity for me.  At the moment the studio looks like any new build in February – mudastic – but it will be surrounded by an inspirational flower garden when it is finished, I hope.  Here are some far from enticing pictures.  I will add more as I get the decorative bits finished after the hard build:

The studio is insulated so it is warm, has lots of light so that no-one gets a seat out of natural daylight, and is plumbed in so there will always be plenty of tea and coffee.  There will also be my not inconsiderable collection of books to browse through.

I will be posting a lot more about this in the next few days with pictures of the possible products from possible workshops.  In the meantime, let’s hope the rain lets up and I can get round to that flower garden I mentioned.