Tuesday 23 January 2024

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. 
  

 

Saturday 16 December 2023

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.


 





Sunday 29 October 2023

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)


Saturday 26 August 2023

H. ART HEREFORDSHIRE ART FESTIVAL 2023

 



We are holding our first Open Studio Event at Hillside Cottage 
as part of 

H. ART HEREFORDSHIRE ART FESTIVAL 2023

The event runs from Saturday 2nd September to Sunday 10th September.
We will be open every day from 11am to 5pm 


We are looking forward to showcasing our work, our new "Creative Cabin"  will be full of items to purchase, the studio will be open for demos and the garden an ideal place to relax and be inspired.
We look forward to seeing you soon!

Sunday 25 June 2023

The Creative Cabin- New Studio


We have been busy at Hillside Cottage, building a new studio for Woollen Tree.
So pleased with it. Named it The Creative Cabin!

 A fantastic space and so very versatile. Great to hold my weaving workshops in, giving me more of space for teaching small groups. 


I am enjoying kitting it out with everything I need. In this photo you can see my weaving studio and the new creative cabin together. Along the wall I have laid my latest batch of organic cotton handwoven cloth which will become T towels.




The other exciting news is Woollen Tree is taking part in H Art - Herefordshire Art Festival this year! The event runs from 2nd to 10th September 
and 
we will be opening the studios and garden for folks to visit and of course our new creative cabin will be filled with lovely items for people to buy. 
I will let you know more details closer to the date, meanwhile I hope you enjoy watching our You Tube and if you are interested coming to weave in the new cabin please get in touch via my ko-fi or Etsy shop. 
Thanks for your interest.

OUR NEXT CRAFT SHOW IS AT AYMESTREY FETE 15TH JULY
 


 

Thursday 23 March 2023

A Visiting Loom - At Woollen Tree Weaving Workshops.


A visiting loom

It's been an exciting time at Hillside, there's plenty going on to keep us busy. Renovations continue on the outside of the cottage with the chimney repointed, rendering repaired and new guttering and facias fitted.
But most exciting of all is that I have been able to start my weaving workshops.
The two workshops this month have been working on 4 shaft looms. It has been great to welcome fellow weavers to my little studio and get stuck into making warps and weaving patterns together.




This dear vintage Dryad loom was warped up with 8/2 organic cotton to weave a set of T towels.

I love to see a loom dressed and ready to weave, it always looks so much happier, its character awakes, I feel it just wants to be used, to be creative and do what it has been designed for- in the same way a yacht looks so happy when it is all rigged ready to sail, waiting for you to take it on the next adventure! 


The next adventure happening here at Hillside is the building of a new studio to use for
Woollen Tree Workshops

I will blog more about this soon 


And of course must just round up this little post to show you the lambs which have arrived in the field next to our orchard. So cute! We love to watch them, very entertaining as they get up to mischief.


Spring is here!



 

Monday 23 January 2023

Work at Hillside Cottage


Shadow Weave Project On the Loom


Lots of work going on at Hillside Cottage.
For January, work started on our cottage renovations. A new heating and hot water system has been  installed powered by a air source heat pump to run along with our solar panels. 

As you can imagine it has been a major upheaval to get this all fitted, every room needed new radiators. New piping and water cylinder fitted, all the floor boards up and dust and mess a plenty.
However this in itself has been so interesting, to see the "bones" of our cottage, beautiful solid oak beams and floorboards, they certainly knew how to build solid long lasting houses in the early 1800's

While all the cottage was full of workmen busy fitting the system I retreated to my studio and got stuck into some shadow weave projects. I put an extra long warp on my David loom and played with colour, pattern and texture.
The first scarf off the loom I used a muted colour palette it feels very vintage. I'm so pleased with it!


Shadow Weave Loom State
(Fresh off the Loom
unfulled or unfinished)


Old to New Radiators



It was so good to be weaving every day. for one thing it kept me warm! January is not an ideal time to manage without heating and hot water for a couple of weeks. My little studio is snug and warm, a little haven of peace and order while our cottage was in such a muddle. We do have a wood burner so that was wonderful source of heat and warmth in the evenings in the cottage, but in the day we were busy so we were fine.



Shadow Weave Twills 

 Now we are all cosy and snug. 

Having done an early Spring clean, tidied and put furniture back in place we are planning our next big renovation. (will tell you more in a later post). First we will be decorating the shower room (doing a little project) as we know very soon we will be out in the garden getting things ready for the Spring growing season.


Look already the snowdrops and daffodils are peeking through.