I love woven willow & specify it when I can for my clients. It’s a great natural screen, utilises amazing craftspeople’s skills & looks terrific in the right space. I’ve written about it before way back in 2014..

As I said in that blog I have several large woven sculptures here in our house & as it’s a barn conversion a few cow heads look in-keeping with the look I’ve put together…This is Toro (he’s Spanish!) who guards my studio

& this below is Bob … we don’t normally name inanimate creatures in our house but this one was made by a talented guy called Bob whom I met many years ago at a Chelsea design fair & it just stuck. Walking up the Kings Road with a Highland cow head was a tad embarrassing but hey ho! it was worth it. Bob Johnson baskets if you want to find him – a great artist specialising in woven willow based in Ireland.

Anyway – I recently subscribed to the Chatsworth instagram feed & newsletter. Chatsworth is my favourite stately home & was planning a visit sometime when I received an intriguing email offering these 1 day courses….

I absolutely loved the polar bear & thought how fantastic it would be to make such a gorgeous creature. It was expensive so I thought about it for a while & then told my sister what I was planning to do. She is so not arty so I was amazed when she said she would like to do it too. We paid & I then panicked as I had no experience working with willow & this looked really impressive. I have a degree in art so felt a certain pressure to do well but thought it looked complicated & skilful ;/ My husband calmed me down & explained how they would not want anyone going home disappointed so it must be achievable.

We had an early start as Chatsworth is 3 hours further north from my sister who lives a little closer than me, but what a great day we had! Emma Stothard is a talented artist working with willow & she ran the course. We started with tea & biscuits & a chat about what we were to do. Starting with a metal armature, we gradually wrapped it in willow until it started to take shape. I kept going over & looking at hers (which was amazing of course) trying to figure out the muscle formation & gradually felt more confident. Everyone was quietly determined & the atmosphere was happy & friendly. Emma came round sporadically & helped us out. Mine was a bit pointy & my sister’s was very fat! All was rectified by kindly Emma.

Here he is in our kitchen looking fairly polar bearish… I’m absolutely delighted .

I added paws in the last few minutes when time was up which is why they look the way they do but I couldn’t leave without giving him some feet!

Getting out of your comfort zone & learning a new skill is such a great thing to do. We had a super day & will remember it always – particularly as my bear now lives in our kitchen. Chatsworth have lots of day courses as do many other event spaces. I know Daylesford offer lots which all look fantastic (even more pricey though :0). Here’s Emma.

Included in the ticket price of £220 was access to the house all decked out for Christmas, the light trail & the Christmas market. Here are a few pics…

one last thing… I popped in to Bicester Village last night with my husband to have a quick Christmas mooch about & fell in love with the windows of the Fortnum & Mason shop. Look at this beautiful pelican below…

Back to work which I’ll tell you about next time – oh & we’re off to the Blenheim Palace light show tomorrow so maybe more Christmas pics too…

Watch this space