On Our Woollen Tree You Tube Channel- Castlemilk Moorit Project

My latest video on Woollen Tree channnel,

Watch From fleece to scarf

From fleece to scarf | Making a rare breed Castlemilk Moorit sheep scarf

Valais Black Nose Sheep- A Special Spin

Photo by kind permission Hazel Bows

Are these the cutest lambs you ever did see?

They are Valais Black Nose Breed, a very rare breed and highly sought after.

The breed is renowned for their friendly nature and with their beautiful faces and wonderfully thick curly fleeces they are an absolute delight.

These little cuddly ones have had their very first shearing. 

And I was given a boxful of that first softest curly wooliness!

I love to spin local wool, it just feels so right to work with fibre that is home grown in the village. I feel 

 my work becomes more grounded in the environment, gently and rhythmically spinning the wool on my wheel and hand knitting the yarn into a simple accessory is very satisfying. Continuing an ancient essential craft to produce modern handmade items.

So to thank Hazel for her lovely supply of the wool, to my studio, I enjoyed creating for her one of my  SWH Cowl/Neck Warmer Designs.

Hand Spun and Hand Knitted SWH Cowl with handmade wooden buttons made by WrightTurned.

To all our family, friends and customers.

Thank you for all your support whether you are reading our blog, watching our YouTube, purchasing our work at Craft festivals or online.

We wish you a very Happy Christmas and a Happy Peaceful New Year.

Looking forward to bringing you more woolly and woody stories in 2025

 

Thank you to all our customers who came to visit us over H Art Festival in Sept.

We will be attending a lovely local fair next month. 

 

H ART Art Festival 2024- Woollen Tree

 Sue Wright | Herefordshire Art Week (h-art.org.uk)

                                     H Art time this year is 

                                                       Sat 7th Sept to Sun 15th Sept

                                                       Open from 11am to 5pm daily

Traditionally Hand Crafted with needles, wheel and loom.
Hand Woven Accessories and Homeware along with Hand Knitted, Hand Spun, Hand Dyed items.
Hand Turned weaving and knitting accessories.

Come and try your hand at weaving on a loom!
Enjoy the garden and be inspired by the surrounding views.
Parking at Hillside is limited so please consider parking in Aymestrey Parish Hall Car Park if needed Many Thanks.

Woollen Tree 

We are excited to be opening up our studios and garden again and we hope you will be able to pop by.

 Sue Wright | Herefordshire Art Week (h-art.org.uk)

About h.Art | Herefordshire Art Week (h-art.org.uk)

More for 2024

Weaving Cloth 

Hello, Welcome back to our blog. We are all fired up and ready to get stuck into lots of projects for 2024. 

I hope you will find items of interest and inspiration here on our blog as well as over on the

 Woollen Tree You Tube channel.

We have enjoyed the Christmas/New Year break. It has been lovely to ease up a little after such a busy 2023. Time with family and friends, time to re energize. I have spent January playing and experimenting in the studio, doing a bit of sewing and busy weaving cloth for myself and the home.

Pete has been busy building better storage in his own workshop as well as in my studio.

Sample Weave

Techniques on a Rigid Heddle Loom

We are back to it now and all set for more in 2024

Weaving, spinning, knitting, wood turning, dyeing and running workshops and open days.

Our garden is showing signs of Spring and we can't wait to get started on the growing year.

Our dear Hillside Cottage has had a fresh coat of exterior paint and looks beautiful and happy.

Heritage White.

So we do hope you will join us for 2024. We will be stocking the online shops over the coming weeks and opening up dates for workshops again.

Our  blog for 2024 will feature our country lifestyle, growing the garden and designing our home, along with sharing our love and joy of working in our chosen crafts in wood and wool.

We love our cottage life here, it isn't always rosy, things can be challenging as with everyone's lives.

Our workload is full of plumbing, fixing things up. The cottage needs attention and we are slowly doing up the place. 

We have a good garden and we are working to be as self sufficient in fruit/veg as possible. 

It is very special here, we have magnificent views, wonderful hills and woodlands surround us, a land steeped in history and dark skies at night filled with stars.

Hillside is home and it is magical. 

  

 

Twenty Twenty Three

 

Good Health Cheers

Well here we are already! The year is drawing to a close. Once again the year seems to have whizzed by.

All the good intentions of keeping up to date with this blog, so much I could have written, perhaps I will do better next year ;)

We hope our Woollen Tree YouTube along with other online sites have been of interest. Thank you for your continued support. 

We endeavour to bring you a little insight into our lives at Hillside Cottage, deep in the North Herefordshire countryside and love to show you our makes in our studios.  

2023 saw us

Building and fixing;  

Hillside Cottage has been having lots of renovations.

New heating system, external repairing and painting.

A brand new Creative Cabin studio in the garden.

Growing;

Garden harvest, bumper crops of fruit/veg

all pickled or made into chutney, jams and frozen.

Crafting for;

 Weaving workshops

Art Open Studios

Craft shows

Being inspired to continue; 

Weaving, wood turning

Spinning and dyeing

Handwoven cloth

Woollen Tree has found a good place to grow, its roots are deep in this beautiful place now. We are constantly inspired by the wonderful countryside around us.

I revel in all of Nature's amazing colours and try to produce handwoven cloth that reflects this. I have been growing plants and using them for natural dyeing in our garden.

Pete is enjoying sourcing local wood for his wood turnery. I will definitely be filming a bit more in his workshop so as you can see how the beautiful pieces are made.

Lots of plans for 2024 but for now, we have closed the Etsy and Folksy shops for the Christmas holidays and look forward to some family time. We will open again in January 2024

We wish you a very Happy Christmas time and a healthy and Peaceful the New Year.

 

H Art and Upcoming Events Before Christmas

 

It has been a busy time here at Hillside Cottage. We were delighted with our first h. Art event!

What a wonderful week!

We had a mini heatwave, the sun shone every day, perfect for all our lovely customers to relax in the garden, purchase our  handwoven and wood turnery work from the Cabin. Lots of them enjoyed the weaving demos in my studio and signed up for some "learn to weave workshops".

Pop over to our Woollen Tree YouTube video to view.

(13) h.Art 2023 Venue | Woollen Tree - YouTube

We will be opening again for H. Art Christmas Open Studios the weekend of  2nd to 3rd December from 10am to 4pm. There will be a different feel to this event as the Cabin will be cosy with the little stove lit. The shelves will be filled with items to buy special gifts for the festive season. The garden will be decorated with fairy lights and weather permitting the Jovi tent will be in place again to offer a hot cuppa to customers as they browse and shop.  

Home | Herefordshire Art Week (h-art.org.uk)

We are now heavily into the pre Christmas season of craft fayres and shows so ;

Before our event at Hillside Cottage, Woollen Tree will be attending two more shows.

The first is Orleton Handmade and Gift Fair

The following is Made in HR6

 If you are in the local area we do hope to see you there!

We will be stocking our online shops over the coming weeks too, so please click on our links to view our Etsy, Folksy and Ko-fi sites (right hand column on web view site of our blog)