Twelfth Night

Tonight is twelfth night. As we take down all the greenery and glitz of Christmas, I thought this would be a good time to show some pictures of the beautiful table centres and wreaths which people made at my Christmas workshops. The table centres (like the one above) we made this year were woodland-inspired. We started with a humble wooden chopping board. 

Then this was covered in moss. Here is the set up at the golf club workshop and some of the participants attaching their moss. 

Then we added lots of different materials to the moss. For example:

Once the base was complete, we added a small arrangement of red roses and seasonal foliage. Like this.

Here are a few more completed table centres. They were interesting, quirky and attractive and I hope they drew a lot of admiration during the holidays.

I ran a similar workshop at my house. If you were wondering how the arrangement of fresh flowers accessed a water supply, this picture shows you how. We made a small container from a plastic cup which we covered in moss and attached to the base.

A final touch being added. For this arrangement we included pretty red anemones as well as roses.

Here is another completed table centre.

At this workshop we also took some small wooden discs.

These were decorated to match the main arrangement and the idea was to use them as individual place settings. They worked really well – a definite hit!

I ran my wreath workshop again this year. Here are the stages for making a truly splendid wreath which can be hung inside or outside. First, take a wire wreath base and handfuls of straw. Then use reel wire to attach the straw to the base.

Next, make small bunches of spruce.

Then make an equal number of bunches using holly, ivy and spruce.

Next use the reel wire to attach the bunches to the foliage base.

Next comes the design stage. This is where you decide what to attach to the foliage. The materials you choose need to be wired like this.

Then the wires can be pushed into the base to hold the materials securely.

Here is the fabulous result. What amazing workshop participants.

This is my wreath hung on an internal door. It is a gorgeous, sumptuous wreath and I will be very sorry to take it down this evening.

I made a lot of arrangements in vases and jam jars for customers, friends and family. In this one I added a bit of blue to the traditional red, white and green. I thought this added a freshness that I liked.

Then for these jam jar arrangements made with English flowers from Cornwall, I added some yellow (soleil d’or narcissi) as well as blue. The result was bright and joyful. On this up-beat note I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and thank you for all your custom, enthusiasm and support during 2015. 

Christmas offers and 2016 workshops

Happy Christmas to all the friends of Meadowsweet. For Christmas this year I am making a limited number of festive posies and bouquets. I will be using mainly English flowers and foliage – anemones, alstroemeria, tulips, narcissi, eucalyptus and pittosporum. The posies will be made in festive jam jars (gold or red and white) – see below. They are £10.00 each.

I also have a few festive jugs left – decorated with ivy or poinsettia (see below).  A large bouquet presented in one of these is £40. Alternatively, the same bouquet presented in water (within cellophane) in a Meadowsweet gift bag is £25.00. 

If you would like to order any of these, please contact me as soon as possible. I have only ordered a modest amount of flowers and when they are gone, they’re gone! I am also planning next year’s workshops.  I am holding the price steady for 2016 – that is £50, but reduced to £45 to people on my previous client list (includes attendance at a workshop, past purchase of a bouquet and wedding clients). The only exception is the hand-tied bouquet  in a Heron Cross jug which I have had to put up to £55 (reduced to £50) because of the cost of the jug. For planning purposes it would be really good to have a sense of which workshop topics would be most popular. Here are some pictures of the arrangements made in previous workshops. First, three hand-tied posies in jam jars: 

Next a large hand-tied bouquet in a Heron Cross jug (not always this pattern on the jug): 

Next, my vintage flowers workshop (uses three different construction methods): 

Next, the woodland logs: 

Next a large bouquet made from groupings of flowers and presented in cellophane and a Meadowsweet gift box: 

Finally, a large round arrangement made using chickenwire in a container decorated with long-lasting leaves (only one arrangement is made in the workshop): 

If you are thinking of attending a workshop next year, it would be really helpful if you could drop me a line to let me know which of these topics is most appealing to you. This does not commit you in any way to signing up for a workshop – I am just testing the temperature to get a sense of which of these topics are likely to be most popular.  In addition to these existing workshops, I will probably drop in a new topic. In 2015 the Saturday morning workshops were by far the best attended and I am thinking I will only offer them on Saturdays in 2016 (except just before Christmas). If you would also be interested in attending a workshop on a weekday morning or evening, please let me know in case there is demand for this amongst some people.

Thank you to all of you for your interest, support and custom during 2015. I hope you have a wonderful time over Christmas with lots of fun, laughter and flowers.

November

November isn`t usually my favourite month, but this year it has been brightened up with flowers. Last week I spent a fantastic evening with the wonderful women of the Eccleshall WI. This was my second workshop with them – in the summer we spent an evening making hand-tied posies in jam jars, and this latest workshop was to make arrangements in cups and saucers using chicken wire. The first idea was to make a structured design – something like this.

Then the second idea was to make something less formal in shape. Here I am demonstrating it.

And here is the design. 

All the participants were really good at working with flowers and they were tremendously creative. Here are some of them at work and I am listening and giving a bit of feedback.

What fabulous results. A thoroughly enjoyable evening:

The other thing I did last week was the flowers for Fiona and Jon’s wedding. It was at Halifax Hall in Sheffield and it was the Saturday after we had some snow. The venue was filled with light and it looked magical. I am hoping that I will be able to use some of the official photographs of their wedding and then I will do a whole blog about it. But for now, here is a little taster:

I also made a couple of arrangements in my favourite jugs to brighten up our home:

December will be filled with wreath and table centre workshops. Here are some of the materials that I am building up.

I`m really excited about Christmas this year – we are staying in Sheffield for the whole holiday period and I plan to fill our house with Christmas flowers and festive foliage.

London flowers

Last month I visited London on a bit of a flower mission. First of all I visited the National Gallery and the Tate – I was looking to see how flowers had been depicted through different time periods and different styles. In truth, there weren`t many pictures that included flowers, and hardly any which made a feature of them. I really like the painting above by John Samuel Raven (1826-1877) which is a lovely, flowery view near Cobham in Kent. Most of the early paintings (around 1500s to 1600s) are religious and flowers are used to symbolise concepts like purity or peace. The precision painting below is by Francisco de Zurburan (1598-1664) and the accompanying words suggested that the water represents the purity of the Virgin and the ‘flower recalls her title of mystic rose’.

Quite a lot of the paintings present flowers as part of domestic scenes. This close up of a splendid urn is lifted from a painting of a lady drinking chocolate with her family and manservant (upper class!). It is by Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743).

More recently, the impressionist Edouard Vuillard (1808-1940) includes flowers within domestic scenes in Normandy. The first is called ‘The Mantlepiece’ and the second is lifted from a much larger painting called ‘The Lunch’.

My favourite domestic scene is this one depicting women in the baths at Pompeii. We are told that it was carefully researched and then painted by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912). It has the curious title of ‘A Favourite Custom’ – which I assume refers to the bathing. The women here seem to be having such a good time, and the vase of purple flowers could have been picked and displayed yesterday.

I was pleased to find a sumptuous Rossetti (1828-1882) with flowers. This painting is called ‘The Beloved’ or ‘The Bride’. It is interesting to see how the two young white women are holding cut flowers whilst the exotic black child-woman holds up a small vase of flowers (roses, I think). Like all of Rosseti’s work, this painting conveys romance and sensuality…..a far call from the chaste rose and water of de Zurburan.

Finally, I found two pictures depicting poor, mad, sad Ophelia. Before she fell to her watery death, ‘fantastic garlands did she make of crowflowers, nettles, daisies and long purples’. The first painting is by John Everett Millais (1829-96) and the second by Odilon Redon (1840-1916).

From the galleries, I made my way to the Garden Museum which is based in a de-sanctified church close to Lambeth Palace. 

It was showing an exhibition with the promising title of ‘Gnome and Away’. The main exhibits were old gardening tools, some intricate paintings of gardens and a rather paltry display of gnomes (I wasn`t allowed to photograph them). I have to say, I have seen far better gnome collections in people’s gardens. The Museum’s own garden was looking pretty barren (far less interesting than our own garden in October) and the whole thing was a bit of a disappointment. They have some funds to refurbish the Museum, so I am hoping for better in the future.

Then I had a bit of a treat. Jessie took me to Columbia Flower Market. 

There were some great flowers, plants and gourds for sale – all at very reasonable prices. 

Here is what we bought:

And what we made of our flower purchases.

Rebecca Louise Law, an installation artist who works mainly with flowers, is based on Columbia Road. Her work inhabits a place somewhere between art and floristry. She is currently exhibiting arresting photographs in which she has re-created flower arrangements based on paintings by Dutch masters. Here is an example.

The darkness of this picture reminds me of our lengthening nights. This week I cut back all of our cosmos and other annuals, and the lawn has nearly stopped growing. My thoughts are now moving on to Christmas and I have already started to buy dried oranges, cones and cinnamon sticks.....