On Thursday morning we boarded a coach early in the morning to set off for Lincoln  Cathedral Flower Festival called ‘Dreams of Gold’.  It was an uneventful journey and a few hours later we pulled up just around the corner from the Cathedral.  Ann had organised ‘fast track’ entry tickets for us and as we made our way inside the Cathedral the size and splendour of the venue could not fail to impress, but the flowers just outshone everything.  They were everywhere and beautifully arranged. The sheer size of the Cathedral meant that it took a good couple of hours to complete a full ‘circuit’ but we had arranged a late lunch which fitted in well with our day.  After lunch, some members decided to have a wander round the shops and streets of Lincoln while others returned to the Cathedral to view again the wonderful flowers.  By the time the coach came back for us at 4pm we were all ready for a rest but agreed it had been a lovely trip out.  Thanks to Ann for organising it for us.  A few photos from the day are below – some depicting the Olympics and some drawing inspiration from the Golden Jubilee.

1. The London Eye

2. Sculpture in the Olympic Park

3. Olympic Rings

4. Olympic Torches

5. General view inside the Cathedral

6. Paper Horses

7. Gold & Silver Medals

8. Paralympics

Well! We had a really fabulous evening last week in the company of Philip Wolf, Head of Floristry from Frosts Garden Centre at Woburn.  It was an unusual meeting for us as August is holiday time and we take a break, but this year having missed our June date due to the Queen’s Jubilee Celebrations, we had an August meeting.  Obviously some of our Members were not able to attend – and what a treat they missed!  Philip inspired us with his wonderful selection of flowers – introduced us to some very unusual ones such as Water Lillies as cut flowers and Corcumas in a lovely pale green & cream   and created some beautiful arrangements.  We learned a lot about the Floristry Department at Frosts including just how many flowers they grow ‘in house’ and short courses they run and the lucky ladies who won an arrangement in the raffle went home with some really stunning flowers.  We hope he will come back and visit us again sometime.

With the Olympics just a few weeks away, we were delighted to welcome Laura Leong back to our club to present a very topical demonstration called ‘Going for Gold’.  Laura created 7 arrangements for us, each representing a facet of the games.  Laura also gave us lots of snippets of information about the Olympics while she worked and by the end of the evening the stage was full of a wonderful array of designs depicting the Olympic flame, the 5 rings, the stadium, the flame holder and the gold medals.  Laura had an exotic selection of flowers including some that were new to me – Jatropha which was an orange almost plastic looking flower which gave a lovely representation of fire, a beautiful red and white spray rose called Latino Pompom used in the Stadium arrangement and another spray rose, this time in deep red called Red Piano which she used to depict flames. At the end of the evening the raffle was drawn and  7 very lucky ladies were each able to take home an arrangement, but even those of us who didn’t win went away happy and inspired!  Some photos from the evening are below.

The weather outside was overcast and dreary but inside we were entertained by Fiona Franklin recounting the story of the WI Group who raised funds for a Leukemia charityby posing for a calendar using  flowers to cover their modesty!  There was of course an arrangement made from big bold sunflowers, a recurring theme of the calendar, one depicting ‘afternoon tea’ to represent the photograph where cup cakes were featured, another arrangement represented the glamour of the trip to Los Angeles to appear on a TV chat show and another was exotic and rich.  It was a lovely evening and Fiona used some really beautiful flowers.  The photos below give  a flavour of the evening.

A group of around 20 of us met at the Church Hall on Goldington Road early last Saturday for a full day workshop led by John Chennell.  The theme of the day was ‘extending the size’ which meant making a structure to add in to an arrangement to make look bigger than it really is!  We all turned up with various types of twigs and sticks and spent the morning wiring, glueing and tying them together.  Some of us (especially me!) had more glue on us than on our creation!  However, after lunch we began adding the flowers and by late afternoon everyone had an arrangement to be proud of.  It was quite a challenging day, but I think everyone attending learnt something and went away happy.  A few photos from the day are below.

After a week of glorious sunshine, it was back to dull and grey by the time Anna Stevens from Oxford cane to visit us.  However, she soon added lots of colour to our evening with her beautiful flower arrangements.  There was one in almost every colour and by the end of the evening the stage looked stunning.   However, it was not just her flowers that had our attention, but her wonderful selection of mechanics and containers, most of which she had made herself  using everything from wood bark towool to wire .  Anna has a strong background in Art, and this really shone through her work.  She talked about space and texture and visual balance as well as her life in Oxford and I think I speak for all of us when I say we went away inspired and hope that she will re-visit us in the not-too-distant future.

For our first demonstation of this year, we invited Mary Griffiths from Mildenhall to visit us.  Mary created 6 lovely arrangements most of which used garden foliage that Mary had gathered from various gardens of her friends but the final one used bought ferns and ruscus that she put together with some beautiful whilte lilies  to make a real impact.  She talked about her memories of her earlier life in Jersey and how she ‘got into’ flower arranging.   The evening sped by and got our year off to an excellent start.

On Tuesday evening we had a lovely Christmas meeting with Lorena Dyer from Coventry who delighted us with a selection of Christmas arrangements based on everything from a box of chocolates to an evening at the ballet!  Lorenena’s designs were full of bold colours and after just a couple of hours, she had filled the stage.  A few photos from the evening are below….

A group of us had a lovely day yesterday at the Church Hall in Kempston Rural when Laura Leong came down to lead 2 Christmas themed workshops – in the morning we did ‘Traditional with a Twist’ – where we were offered a choice of making either a beautiful holly leaf door wreath or a cone shaped ‘christmas tree’ arrangement in an urn.  The afternoon session was entitled  ‘Contemporary Christmas’ and again we had a choice of what to create – either a wire frame that we had to form from wires and string covered wire – (quite intricate but we all rose to the challenge!) that we subsequently decorated with berries, ivy, dried fruits, baubles or anything else that people had brought along and the second one was a modern decoration on a wreath frame.  Some people did both the morning and afternoon session, some did just one.  Laura made all four arrangements plus a couple of others and they were raffled off – she also showed us some other little techniques such as how to make a lovely 5 pointed star using wire wrapped around a ruler.  I’ve just been out in my garage having a go at that now!  I think we all learned something new, as well as enjoying the social side of the event and look forward to the next workshop – whatever it may be!

Janet Cooper from Northamptonshire gave us a step back in time with her demonstration entitled “My Colour Palette”
Back to our roots as flower arrangers with the NAFAS Colour Wheel as her inspiration.  Among the arrangements she used elements of the colour wheel to create a Monochromatic Design (tones of all one colour) and then a Polychromatic Design using all colours as if we had just been given a mixed bunch from the Garage or Supermarket, but of course with the added extra an Orchid! Good use of texture and forms within her arrangments and ideas that could be scaled down to
enhance any home. A wonderful evening with so many arrangments to take home for the lucky raffle ticket winners.