Last week the Grasby Embroiderers had a workshop with Wendy of Twigs and Sprigs. Wendy does lots of willow workshops and sculptures, but Helen had made a copper wire hare at a workshop with Wendy a while ago. Helen had thought it would push the group out of our comfort zone if we were to use wire instead of our usual threads.
We were going to make wrens using hard and soft copper wire. I had done some sculptures with wire before, for my Degree Show back in 2013, but nothing realistic (see the three photos below). I’d started fidddling with the wire from red wine bottles, and then progressed to copper wire from old electric cables, which was much finer wire than Wendy was using.
Back to the wrens! We started with a template that Wendy had provided (along with everything else we needed). It was very challenging, as proportions needed to be right for the wren to look realistic. It looked simple enough …
… but tricky to get just right. The coils were wound round a wooden spoon and it miracuously went from this ….
to this …
I’d become so engrossed with the work that I’d forgotten to take photos. The coils were used to fill in the body and head. Another piece of wire was bent to represent tail feathers; it was then anchored in position and more wire added to the body.
The next thing was to twist the feet and legs, and the trickiest part was to make the second one match the first! Each leg was pushed up into the body, and the remaining wire twisted to fix it in place. Much to my surprise it stood up with little adjustment to balance it.
That just left the wings to make and attach. This I found to be the most difficult bit: they need to be attached, but not so the wrapping round was visible; the wings need to appear as if they can be opened to fly away.
I’m really pleased with the result, and between us Grasby Embroiderers have a little flock of wrens.
I’ve not written about this previously, as I have been having computer problems since shortly afterwards, couldn’t download the photos from the camera, and had only taken a couple on my phone. At last it’s sorted, and it was a treat to look at the photos I took, so I thought I’d share a few.
At the beginning of July we had a day trip to Tythe Farm Gardens, Wansford near Driffield, we got there to find none of the rest of the group there! Unusual for us to be the first to arrive. We walked down the driveway to be greeted by Terry, who was surprised to see us, but said it was his wife Susanne who organised these things. A quick phone call to another member of the group, only to find it had been cancelled, but some how we had not received the email telling us so. It’s only about an hour’s drive from home, so not the end of the world.
But no problem, we were made very welcome and had our own private tour around the Gardens by Terry. He’d checked that we were up for tea / coffee at the end. Yes. He left us in the courtyard while sorting this with Susanne, and we duly set off.
First of many sculptures
We back tracked slightly to an area we had passed on our way down the curved driveway, the first of many rose bushes. One I remembered from my childhood, “Peace”, in all its stages from tight buds to over blown, and everything inbetween. It starts off yellow with peach on the outer eges of the petals, the yellow becomes paler as it opens, ending up almost white before it flops. It is scented as most of the old fashioned roses are, and takes me right back to my childhood
“Peace” in budPale lemon with peachy / pink tinge Almost fading to white
The blocks around this rose arbour are just stacked, with no mortar between them. What a great idea, it can be moved or changed easily at a later date. We have some blocks left from our drive, not this many but enough to play around with. I just need to decide where to play!
Blocks just stacked around the sculpture
Terry was giving us the history and background of the garden, and answering my many questions as we walked around the ten-acre site. It is in the Yellow Book Gardens and was open on the 13th June this year for the Charity Open Day, had 700 visitors and raised over £7,500. It is such a large site, ten acres so that even this year it was possible to have so many.
Beautiful scent
Many of the roses were still at their best when we there. Some huge climbing and rambling roses, as well as shrub and bush roses. The one below didn’t even look like a rose until we got up close to it.
Huge climbing / rambling roseClose up of climbing / rambling rose
This sumptuous one made me think of good raspberry ripple ice cream. I was pleased I’d taken the camera, which gave me a much wider range of options than my phone, for macro close ups as well as shots that took in the whole vista of the gardens.
Looks like rasberry ripple ice cream
I commented about the amount of grass there is, and how long it must take to cut it all, for Terry to tell us about the robot lawnmowers, and explain how the grass has improved since they have been in action. They have their own little houses for when they are not in use, but they just unobtrusively, quietly cut the grass for hours on end, regardless of the weather.
There is a series of sculptures by Bruno Peotta from Vicenza, Northern Italy, the most recent being “Apollo and Daphne”, originally by Bernini. It’s good to be able to get up close and see the details. I love the way her toes are growing roots.
Apollo and DaphneApollo and Daphne plinthGreat to see the details up close
I thought that the lake was natural, but in fact was only dug out in the late nineties. The swans have succeeded in raising cygnets this year, although very much at the “Ugly Duckling” stage at the moment, especially when they came out of the water. They looked very ungainly and uncoordinated. But, the proud dad was being very protective of his young, not from us but from the dog.
Vista down the lakeMum and the four cygnetsDad protecting his young
The wrought iron on the bridge at the end of the lake would have interested my dad, a blacksmith until he retired at nearly 80.
Love the bridge
I’ve never seen such a huge clump of spotted orchids. I couln’t get near enough at the right angle with the camera for a close-up, so the phone came into its own for the detail
Huge clump of orchidsClose-up taken with my phone
By the time we had wandered back up to the courtyard, Susanne came out with not only tea and coffee, but a lovely plate of quiche and salad, followed by date and walnut cake. The weather forecast had not been good, lots of rain forecast, but we were lucky and it stayed dry, long enough to eat our lunch and chat for a while.
Quiche and saladTerry and Susanne Hardcastle
We had a lovely time, and were reluctant to leave, but rain was threatening, and had well and truly started by the time we stopped at Wansford Church just down the road.
There is a very good website, with photos taken by Terry, showing the garden at other times of the year, too. They open for groups of 10 plus, as well as the Yellow Book Open Day; next year I believe it’s 21 June. It would be a fabulous place to go and draw too. http://Tythe Farm Gardens, Wansford Thank you both for a lovely day.
debbidipity 