Dream Weaver

An evening of willow weaving was held in my village hall, I popped along and had a splendid evening, we all had a go at weaving an obelisk and all went home with a willow wreath.
I'd wanted to try it for so long and I was thrilled to have a chance, and then our tutor, Jess, announced she was going to start a willow group, where we'd be able to get together, suggest things we'd like to make and do a new project every month.  It was perfect & I signed up, in the time since we've made all sorts of different things.

A woven heart that sits in my garden:

A corn dolly style dragonfly:

Either side of my garden swing seat sit some woven obelisks that my sweet peas grew up and around last year, I made these from memory of what we'd been taught at the evening, so I'm looking forward to doing them again with supervision!

And another obelisk at the other side of the garden, they weren't perfect but for a beginner they worked just fine...

And we made hurdles too, I'm going to make some more of these and have them all around the edges of my beds, they'll give support to the plants that start to fall forward, as they lean, keen to grab each and every ray of sun that they can

It was bloody hard to take a photo of the flower I made last year, but the centre of the flower is the same as the way you start off a basket, not that I can ever quite remember how it's done, but I do love how intricately pretty it is..

And here's Bogart, my hare, one of the things I most wanted to make when I had the chance to learn willow weaving was a hare, so I am utterly, utterly thrilled with him, he's so adorable!  Look at him! Look at how goddamn adorable he is!
I might be somewhat proud of Bogart, I'm not sure if I made that clear... ;)

 At one of the sessions last year we were making a bottomless basket, that you could put around a plant pot to make it more decorative, it's safe to say I did not find French randing easy to pick up. I was flummoxed, so by the end of the session, my basket was quite small as I'd been incredibly slow in my weaving.  I wasn't sure what to do with it, and I hadn't even cut off the excess rods and correctly finished it, I'd just put it straight in the garage until I could decide what to do with it.  Well, this weekend I decided I'd let it be an obelisk, so I purchased a large enough pot, filled it with compost, planted a climbing fuschia and added the makeshift obelisk.  I'm actually really pleased with it and it's now sitting right by my front door:

It's somewhat annoying that a bird pooped on the boards outside my house and all I can see is my obelisk and a blob of white bird poop.  But here's the thing, how did it poop at such an angle? Did it come in sideways for a direct hit? I possibly live in the vicinity of acrobatic poopers. And there we have a sentence that I never thought I'd utter.

My current project is a large basket, which is actually taking three sessions to complete, and it means I'm back to French randing again, but it's actually going mostly okay.  As it's going to be a lot taller than the few inches in the photo above, it should prove to be excellent practice and I might finally get my head around this weaving technique!

I've also made a woven Christmas tree and a wee angel.  Well, actually a wee wonky angel.  She has a definite lilt when she stands, but she'd do fine on the top of a huge Christmas tree!  Not that she'll ever make it to a Christmas tree, she'll just have to remain a lilting angel!

Overall I'm just thrilled that I finally got the chance to learn a new skill. 
Also, as I have problems with both anxiety and depression, it's been a huge challenge for me to go out and do something social in a group with new people.  I've come to feel really comfortable there, Jess is lovely and my fellow weavers are a wonderful, it's been a hugely positive thing in my life, with far more benefits to me than simply beginning to learn a new craft.
Thanks are definitely due to Jess for her patient tutoring & splendid company, and also for sharing my mild obsession with ribbon and fonts.