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 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 

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

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!

Harvest at Hillside

Elderberries

So we near the end of September, our first year at our lovely Hillside Cottage. We have been enjoying a bumper harvest from our garden, despite the "heatwave summer" the UK has been experiencing, we really have had an abundance of fruit and vegetables to keep us well stocked. I have been making jams and chutneys.

 The joy of walking down to the veg garden to select something for our lunch has been immense. We are fortunate to have a variety of fruits- cherries, apples, plums, damsons, raspberries, blue berries, black currants and blackberries. all giving us their treasure each in turn. We have been growing all our veg and salad crops. As we take care of our garden it takes care of us. Organically, no-dig, permaculture system.

The result is tasty food, lots of flowers, insects, bees, butterflies, birds and wildlife. The only battle we seem to be having is with all the wild rabbits! they, given a chance nibble everything- even things they are not suppose to like! luckily our vegetable beds are well fenced so as they can't get in but the terrace up near the cottage and the flower pots are all easy pickings. The baby rabbits are so sweet though hopping around the clover on our lawn. Next year we will build a few more fences to protect our specimen plants on the terrace. 

I made some elderberry cordial this year, perhaps next year I will see if I can make some wine?

Damson Jam

Damson jam is so delicious, shhhh I think a few jars will make perfect Christmas presents for the family  

Craft Fair

We also attended a lovely craft fair at the nearby village of Orleton. It's great to showcase our work and sell locally.

Hand Woven Throws

 It's been a very busy year at Hillside Cottage, so much so that our blog here hasn't been able to keep up with all we would like to share with you.

 Please remember that our Woollen Tree on You Tube is available for you to view along with our

 Ko-Fi site where we plan to chat more and open a little shop on the site too. Thank you for your support.

We are looking forward to producing more work in our Woollen Tree workshops/studio once all the harvest is "safely gathered in"

Meanwhile check our Etsy and Folksy shops to purchase new stock for the new Season.

Natural Dye - Dandelion

 

In the Orchard area at the bottom of our Hillside Cottage garden we have an abundance of dandelions! So I decided to brew a little dye pot and capture a little of Nature's colour  growing there.

I wanted to use the flowerheads only for this dye bath. I placed them in a pot of water and boiled them up on our little camping stove. It was good to sit in the orchard, enjoying the spring sunshine and watching the wild life around me, baby rabbits squeezing under the hedge nibbling the long grass, kites circling above and the garden birds singing their many songs.

 

After about an hour of extracting the dye from the dandelion heads, I strained the liquid from them and added a couple of iron nails to the pot to help lift the colour a little.

My pre mordanted wool skein, 

 Shetland fleece handspun-alum mordant 

Then I added the wool to the dye bath and gently simmered the pot for another hour until the wool had absorbed all the colour 

Hanging the skein up to dry in the tree.

The pale yellow colour achieved is gentle and almost a soft lemon.

This wool will be used in my Saori weaving, when woven with other naturally dyed yarns it will give me a way to highlight, lift and lighten a piece of cloth.

This is my first natural dyeing at our new home - Hillside cottage.

It is thrilling to be able to source my colours from my garden. 

We have been busy creating a Weaver's Garden. A place to brew my colours on the firepit surrounded by home grown dye plants.

We will show you more over on our  You tube channel

shortly.

(63) Woollen Tree - YouTube  

Spring Time

Spring is here at Hillside Cottage. It is so exciting to discover what is growing in our new garden. We have had an abundance of beautiful snowdrops especially in the Orchard. Now followed by daffodils and primroses. The tree and hedgerow blossoms are just starting to open up their buds. 

So it is time to sow seeds in the greenhouse and prepare the vegetable garden for outdoor sowing too.

It has been great fun to watch the new born lambs in the field at the bottom of the garden. 

There is plenty to keep us busy and give us inspiration for our craft work.

On the David loom at the moment is a long warp. I first wove 8 T towels in various colour combinations in Twills and Basket Weave patterns.

Then I opened up the sett to widen the cloth so as to weave a blankie/ small throw in Saori weaving with twills and basket weave details. This is giving me a chance to delve into my yarn stash of spring colours and enjoy the freedom of weaving without a plan just choosing the threads and colours as I feel with mindful creativity.

Joyful!  

A short video of my studio today