I am currently recovering from a wonderful, inspiring, exhausting weekend learning how to create gorgeous paper flowers with Ling Warlow of Paper by Dragonfly and Meg Lowder of Floragami Paper Flowers. This is their first collaboration, a three day masterclass held in Meg’s beautiful Norfolk country home in stunning surroundings.
This was not my first foray into paper flower making, having bought several books on the subject, but my attempts looked feeble after learning from two masters of the art!
On the first day Ling took us through the steps to make an open rose, from dyeing the crepe paper in subtle shades to creating and shaping the petals. We got a flavour of the use of natural dyes, who knew onion skins could look so pretty? And how to use coffee, tea, paints and even food colouring to get soft natural shading.
Meg demonstrated how to replicate the leaves of the roses we all have in our gardens. They are never perfect are they? So the holes left by insects, the brown bits left from weathering and even the dreaded black spot all adds to the authenticity.
On day two Meg led us all in creating magnolia blossoms. Magnolia trees are beautiful in spring but so fragile. The pristine white blooms arrive just at the time when the weather can be unpredictable, and rain, frost and wind so quickly bruises and browns the flowers. The flowers we made reflected all of these stages, the delicate pink striped petals but also those bruised and battered by the elements rendered with subtle coffee staining.
The third day Ling was back in the chair with bearded iris, one of my favourite flowers. Wearing her botanist hat, Ling took us through creating every element of the complex construction of the flower. At one stage, with a pile of strange crepe paper shapes on the desk and gluey fingers it was impossible to imagine that we ever would have anything which would resemble a flower, and then, suddenly, WOW!
It was an enormously satisfying weekend and so well taught. The food from @littlepiepatisserie was delicious, even the cakes had flowers on them!
The company was great with lots of fun and laughter and I really hope to attend another course in the future. Meg’s venue is only half an hour away from me but sadly Ling is further afield, on Merseyside.
Three day eventing, even when it doesn’t involve horses is not really recommended when you have M.E. and it was tough going at times but I’m so glad I did it. It’s really stirred up the creative juices and I can’t wait to get out into my studio. I’m now on the countdown for the decorator to arrive.
in the meantime I might have bought a kit, or three?
So that should keep me occupied while I’m waiting!
See you soon… x
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The needlefelt workshops are back! This spring I will be at 
Last weekend I went off to reboot my creative vibe, which has been languishing under a layer of brick dust for far too long! I trotted along to the Norwich studio of 
In my mind natural dyes were soft and subtle, but it’s astonishing how vibrant some of the colours are.
It’s also interesting to realise that the building in which Aviva has her studio is in the heart of the historic textile area of Norwich where the river used to run red with the waste from the dyeing factories.
There were just two of us the next day and it’s a very small world because we discovered that my fellow student follows Planet Penny – so, Hello Tracy!! We had a wonderful day experimenting with colours and textures and different effects.
So much so that we both headed home having bought our looms, despite both of us saying the last thing we need is yet another craft. It’s just so addictive.
I’m itching to get my loom ready for some more experiments but I will have to wait until I have fewer builders in the house. Today there are four, it feels a bit like 
Ruby is a fabulous crochet designer as seen in 
I really wanted to bring this sheep home! 
There were pattern books galore to inspire us and it wasn’t long before we had all dived in and started new projects and we were a little reluctant to stop to eat. That is until we saw the gorgeous Greek themed feast which had been prepared, just scrumptious!
Ruby had arranged a workshop with 
The final luxurious touch was a massage with Nassira, who was fantastic – it just added that extra relaxing element…