Monday, 28 September 2009
Living Willow Projects
Now is the time to think about booking us for Living Willow projects over the winter.
Friday, 25 September 2009
Royal Berkshire Show, Newbury
We are now getting organised to go to a Food Fair in Brittany in mid October and are really looking forward to seeing what the French make of our work.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Countryside Live
Just got back from Countryside Live at Lee Valley Country Park in Leytonstone. We wove willow wreaths with 600 children over 2 days. The weather was great and everyone had a good time
Monday, 21 September 2009
Willow Rip-Off
We have just returned from great events at The Royal Berkshire Show and Alchemy Music Festival. Both events were very enjoyable with lots of interest from the public. The only annoying aspect of exhibiting our work at public events is when people blatently copy our work. At Newbury we had another basketmaker who after seeing our hearts and stars on sale suddenly started making them and undercutting our prices. Yes we saw them sneaking around looking at our stuff without speaking to us. All's fair in business so they say.
Likewise I had another lady who 'has done a bit of willow weaving' taking close-up pictures of our work without even asking. We know that there is not much unique in the willow world but we are alway surprised at how unapologetic and cheeky the would-be copists are. Would you believe that we have had people pick up one of our £1.00 willow stars, closely examine it, do a sketch and then put it back. They don't even have the grace to give us a quid for stealing an idea.
The most amusing thing so far is an email from a Wildlife Trust who expect us to provide them with willow and details for some school projects that they intend to do instead of hiring Willowpool Designs. We have had to rescue many poorly built living willow projects created by staff of environmental charities using free volunteer labour and no expertise.
We do work with some environmental charities who recommend us for Living Willow Work but some groups are now beginning to offer the services that we provide themselves with little knowledge or experience.
We are still available for booking for Living Willow Sculpture and suggest that any school wanting to improve their outdoor areas by creating willow tunnels, domes, mazes and arbours contact us and not environmental charities with inexperienced staff.
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
School Project in Thirsk
We have just got back from working with Sessay C of E Primary School, Thirsk.We worked outside for 2 days creating willow sculptures with the whole school.
We made a giant sun, a deer and a large bird. The children really enjoyed the time weaving and we will be returning in January to build some living willow structures.
Monday, 14 September 2009
willow pony at Mowbray School, Bedale
Here is a willow sculpture that we made with children at Mowbray School, Bedale
Busy Willow Week
We had a really busy week last week. We got back from Santorini in the early hours of Wednesday after have a great much needed holiday and blast of summer weather. We had the Westmorland Show on Thursday. this is very local to us so we put on a nice display and enjoyed the sunshine.
At the weekend Simone was demonstrating at Castle Howard in Yorkshire and Steve was at Marston Vale near Woburn Abbey. The weather on Saturday was perfect, sunny all day. Sunday stayed fine but was overcast. Steve wove pigs and baskets and Simone ran fish weaving workshops.
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