Upcoming Class: Make a Felt Autumn Wreath

UPDATE: a free tutorial for making this wreath is now available here on my blog!
 
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As I mentioned the other day, I'll be teaching some classes at The Village Haberdashery in London this autumn.

First up - on Saturday 17th September - I'll be running a workshop making a colourful wreath. UPDATE: this class has been rescheduled for Sunday 30th October.

We'll be wrapping a wreath base, making felt leaves and mushrooms/toadstools and assembling all the pieces to make the finished wreath.

This is such a fun project to make, and I'll be sharing lots of felt crafting tips and tricks along the way.

 

All the materials are provided in the price of the class, and you'll get a copy of the templates to take home with you so you can make lots more felt-y things.

 

I think the mushrooms would make lovely ornaments or brooches!

 

Click here for the full details of the autumn wreath class. 

I'm also going to be teaching classes on making a cute felt baby mobile and colourful Christmas ornaments - click here to see all the upcoming classes at The Village Haberdashery.

Déjà Vu: Kensington Gardens & Sensational Butterflies

About this time three years ago, I decided to start taking a day off a week to get on a train and go somewhere.

This was basically one of the best decisions I've ever made. I've been on loads of Nice Days Out since then and am now totally hooked on exploring new places... and am positively evangelical about the importance of carving out time in your schedule to have a proper day off no matter how long your To Do list.

My very first Nice Day Out was a trip to Kensington Gardens, the Royal Geographical Society, the V&A and the butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum. When I sat down to write today's blog post - all about a morning I spent in London a few months ago - I realised that I'd recreated this first Nice Day Out almost exactly. What can I say, I love these places! They're awesome!

This time round I had excellent company - Polly was in town for the day and we had a busy schedule of places to visit to squeeze as much London-goodness into her trip as possible.

We started at Kioskafé, grabbing something to drink and oohing over their fabulous selection of magazines.

Then we walked to Kensington Gardens. The park was looking lush in the late spring sunshine - look at the loveliness that greeted us just inside the park!

We wandered through the Italian Gardens, and looked down the Long Water.

There were so many swans on the lake - and lots of cute little cygnets, too! Just look at those little fluffy fellas.

We headed down the right hand side of the Long Water, which is wonderfully wild around the edges and is also where you'll find the famous Peter Pan statue.

Reaching the other side of the park, we took a small detour to admire the shininess of the Albert Memorial (so darn shiny).

Then we headed down Exhibition Road, calling in at the Royal Geographical Society for their (then) current exhibition, photos of Britain from the air. I love the RGS, they always have such interesting exhibitions and they're a little oasis of quiet and calm away from the hustle and bustle of the main Kensington museums.

Talking of busy museums... next we visited the Natural History Museum for a quick zip round some of the galleries (top tip: use the Exhibition Road entrance, it's usually much quicker than the queue at the main entrance). This building never fails to enchant, and it is practically bursting at the seams with interesting things to see and learn.

Outside the museum in the summer is the Sensational Butterflies exhibition  - a temporary tropical butterfly house. This is basically pure joy, purchasable for a few quid. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Giddy from the magic of the butterflies, we went to the V&A for a late lunch and lots of oohing over the amazing building and its amazing contents (did I mention that the V&A is amazing? The V&A is amazing, you guys, so amazing).

Then we headed to the Tube for part two of our day... but you'll have to wait until another time to hear about that :)

Take a Class with Me at The Village Haberdashery

Exciting news: I'm going to be teaching some classes!

Annie from The Village Haberdashery has invited me to run some workshops in her lovely shop this autumn.

I visited the shop - in West Hampstead, London - yesterday to meet Annie and finalise the details of the classes. She stocks such a gorgeous range of fabric and other crafty supplies, it was all very tempting.

I'll be teaching three felt-y hand-sewing classes:

Saturday 17th September - Making an Autumn Wreath
UPDATE: the wreath class has now been rescheduled to Sunday 30th October

Saturday 29th October - Making a Baby Mobile

Saturday 26th November - Making Vintage-Style Christmas Ornaments
UPDATE: the Christmas ornament class has now been rescheduled to Saturday 27th November

Follow the links for all the details!

 

A Summer Walk along the Green Way

I've travelled far and wide on my Nice Days Out but sometimes it's nice to explore somewhere a little closer to home.

So one sunny weekend in June my sister and I went for a walk along part of the Green Way, a local walking route that runs between the villages of Bray and Cookham, via the town of Maidenhead. We started our walk in Maidenhead and headed towards Bray.

The walk got off to a slightly un-promising start, with a slightly menacing bank of thistles and sightings of such urban delights as abandoned shopping trolleys...

 

 

... and (weirdly) what looked like an old and rusting milk float!

 

Everything was gloriously overgrown though, an absolute riot of green which looked wonderful in the summer sunshine.

It wasn't long before the urban faded away and nature took over and we were walking through veritable tunnels of overhanging trees.

  

We passed a few other walkers - and were passed by several cyclists - but as you can see from the photos this was a beautifully peaceful place to walk. I did a lot of standing to take photos and then scurrying to catch up with my sister who had walked on ahead (going for a walk with a blogger can be very dull!).

 

There were a couple of side paths to explore, but we kept to the main path that passes along the edge of Braywick Park.

Everything was clearly signposted, with maps and information boards at regular intervals so you could see your location and read about things like the local wildlife.

There was also some fab woodland art along the way, carved from old tree trunks.

At one end of the park, there's an area of rough grassland that was a former landfill site. What a pleasure to see (and hear) it reclaimed by nature (there were lots of chirping insects, always a lovely relaxing summer sound!).

 

We walked along the edge of the grassland then arrived at the Dell, a local nature reserve.

My photos really do not do justice to how gorgeous this place was. Small but absolutely overflowing with wild plants and flowers.

 

 We wandered round the Dell for a while, ooohing over the loveliness...

... then headed back, retracing our steps back down the shady tree-lined paths and soaking up all that relaxing green goodness along the way.             

A perfect Sunday walk!